Premier Li Keqiang joined panel discussions with NPC deputies from South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region during the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress on March 6.

The deputies raised suggestions on innovating border trade policies, establishing the negative list of commodity types in frontier trades, building deep processing industrial parks transferred from eastern regions, and improving the mechanism of attracting investors and capital.

Guangxi, located along the coast and the frontier with Vietnam, should make best of its geographical advantage to open to inland regions, as well as to foreign countries, Premier Li said. Efforts should be intensified to reform administration, optimize government services to improve the business environment, and to make progress in lowering the market threshold and in promoting fair competition.

He also said that as a populous area inhabited by various minorities, the province enjoys advantages in labor costs and market prospects, compared with East China.

The Premier encouraged Guangxi to coordinate planning and motivate each side to push forward its economic and social development. “Improvement should be made in infrastructure construction to build it into a hub connecting Southeast Asia and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,” he added.