Since its full island customs closure officially commenced on December 18, 2025, the Hainan Free Trade Port has entered a new phase of reform and development, drawing widespread international attention, particularly from domestic and foreign investors. A recent joint investigation by the Hainan Daily Press Group, leveraging the ASEAN Liaison Center of Hainan International Communication Center, and the century-old Malaysian financial media Nanyang Siang Pau, resulted in the release of a report titled "Survey on ASEAN Enterprises' Investment Intentions in Hainan under the Full Island Customs Closure Operation of the Hainan Free Trade Port." This report systematically outlines the policy awareness, investment intentions, and cooperation expectations of enterprises and investors from the ASEAN region regarding the Hainan Free Trade Port's customs closure operation. It also provides direct references from the perspective of ASEAN enterprises for Hainan to deepen economic and trade cooperation with ASEAN.
The report reveals that among 106 surveyed large, medium, and small enterprises from major ASEAN member states including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, over 70% recognize the strategic value of Hainan as a "transshipment or re-export platform" for accessing the Chinese mainland market.
**Sample Analysis: Policy "Visibility" of Hainan Free Trade Port Essentially Established** In terms of enterprise scale structure, the surveyed entities were predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), while also including a certain proportion of larger enterprises with regional or cross-border business experience. This composition provides a necessary comparative dimension for analyzing differences in cognitive structures and focus points among entities of varying sizes. This structure aids in understanding ASEAN enterprises' attitudes towards the Hainan Free Trade Port from multiple levels: it reflects the practical concerns of SMEs regarding institutional thresholds and implementation conditions, while also preserving the judgment perspective of larger enterprises on long-term strategy and regional layout. This foundation provides a relatively solid sample base for subsequent analysis of investment intentions, key attractive factors, and main concerns.
The survey results can be seen as the latest systematic feedback from ASEAN enterprises, represented by the Malaysian business community, regarding their perception of Hainan Free Trade Port policies, potential attractiveness, and primary concerns. The relevant conclusions can offer preliminary, practical reference points for the Hainan Free Trade Port's subsequent policy promotion, institutional optimization, and adjustment of investment attraction strategies in the ASEAN market.
Survey results indicate that enterprises' expectations regarding the government's role are highly concentrated and clearly directed. When evaluating the Hainan Free Trade Port, corporate decision-making logic has gradually shifted from an initial "policy attraction" based judgment towards a comprehensive assessment of institutional operability.
Based on ranking results, "Financial Support and Convenience" tops the list of corporate expectations, emerging as the most concerning area for government support. Following the official start of customs closure operations, corporate sensitivity towards cross-border fund allocation, settlement arrangements, financing channels, and foreign exchange management mechanisms has significantly increased. Smooth financial systems will be a key driver for enterprises to ultimately decide on Hainan as an actual operational or regional layout node. Especially for SMEs, compared to single tax rate levels, the accessibility of financial tools, clarity of financing paths, and predictability of cross-border capital flows often constitute more practical and prioritized concerns.
Following closely are "Rule of Law and Market Environment" and "Policy Interpretation and Guidance," further highlighting the high importance enterprises place on institutional transparency and rule comprehensibility. This indicates that against the backdrop of changing institutional boundaries brought by customs closure, enterprises hope for further understanding of clear rules, consistent enforcement standards, and stable, continuous policies within the Hainan Free Trade Port.
Furthermore, "Providing Policy Support or Market Access Relaxation" and "Reducing Comprehensive Operational Costs" also received significant attention. This suggests that, assuming the basic feasibility of the institutional framework and financial environment, enterprises will further evaluate the project's cost structure and access conditions from an operational perspective, hoping to secure long-term development for implemented projects.
Attention to "Talent Introduction and Livability Support" and "Green Channels for Project Implementation" constitute important supplementary conditions for overall corporate decision-making. Particularly for enterprises planning to establish regional headquarters, R&D centers, or conduct long-term operations in Hainan, the stability of talent supply, and residency and living conveniences often gradually become key variables affecting the depth of layout and organizational stability as projects move from the intent phase to the implementation phase.
Overall, the survey results clearly show that corporate expectations for support from Hainan have taken on distinct service-oriented and institution-oriented characteristics. Enterprises are increasingly focused on the smooth financial systems and clear rule of law and market rules of the free trade port under the conditions of customs closure operation.
**Awareness and Investment Intentions Gradually Increasing** The survey results show that over 70% of respondent enterprises recognize the strategic value of Hainan as a "transshipment or re-export platform" for entering the Chinese mainland market. Enterprises have generally formed a relatively clear understanding of Hainan's potential functions in terms of geographical conditions, policy positioning, and institutional innovation direction, and they give positive evaluations of its role in China's pattern of high-level opening up. Most enterprises have reached a consensus that "Hainan holds significant strategic importance and is worthy of continuous attention." The current focus is gradually shifting towards "how Hainan can be utilized more efficiently in actual operations and business layouts," laying a good foundation for the next stage. Further clarification of institutional interfaces, operational guidelines, and application scenarios can promote the transition from观望 (observation/wait-and-see) to substantive participation.
**Decision-Making Logic Shifts Towards Institutional Operability and Practical Utility** In the process of evaluating entry into the Chinese market, factors such as regulations and approval processes, technical standard alignment, and market information access have become key practical operational concerns for enterprises. Further strengthening institutional explanations, operational guidance, and service support will help more fully unleash the policy advantages, gradually transforming recognition at the cognitive level into actual investment and operational behaviors.
**Hainan as a Key Institutional Interface for ASEAN Enterprises to Access the Chinese Market** Hainan's core attractiveness lies in providing enterprises with an entry channel characterized by relatively low institutional friction and a relatively clear operational path. Especially for ASEAN enterprises entering the Chinese market for the first time or in stages, there is an expectation for Hainan to function as a "buffer zone" and "interface zone" in areas such as institutional interpretation, approval coordination, technical standard alignment, and cross-border financial arrangements.
**Enterprise Feedback: Promoting Practical Layout through "Operational Pathway Explanations"** Financial support and convenience, the construction of a rule-of-law market environment, and systematic policy interpretation and guidance mechanisms are widely regarded by enterprises as core conditions for enhancing decision-making confidence. This survey indicates that the Hainan Free Trade Port has established a relatively solid foundation for policy perception among ASEAN enterprises. Corporate expectations for Hainan have clearly shifted from "having policies" to "policies being applicable long-term and having assistance for implementation."
ASEAN enterprises believe that the next phase of Hainan Free Trade Port's external promotion and investment attraction strategies should transition more from "policy list introductions" to "operational pathway explanations." By using specific cases, scenario-based guidance, and one-stop对接 mechanisms, it can help enterprises understand "how to establish operations in Hainan, how to enter the mainland through Hainan, and how to manage risks at the compliance and operational levels," thereby promoting the conversion of potential认同 (recognition/approval) into substantive investment and cooperation.
Feedback from interviews with various national chambers of commerce and enterprise management suggests that the Hainan Free Trade Port is widely understood as an "institutional engineering project," rather than merely a single industrial park or tax haven. Respondent enterprises generally believe that Hainan's strategic significance lies not in replicating the models of mature free ports like Hong Kong, China, or Singapore, but in exploring a feasible path for higher-level opening up with Chinese characteristics.
Against the backdrop of RCEP's entry into force and China's continuous promotion of regional economic and trade cooperation, Hainan is seen as an important south-facing institutional interface connecting China's domestic demand market with the ASEAN economy. Its policy direction demonstrates high strategic consistency with regional integration trends. In the eyes of ASEAN enterprises, Hainan has completed the transition from an "unfamiliar policy concept" to a "potential institutional entry point."
Feedback from ASEAN enterprises indicates that companies from countries like Cambodia and Myanmar, traditionally focused on export manufacturing, agricultural products, or resource-based industries, generally view Hainan Free Trade Port's "intermediary" function of reducing institutional costs for entering the Chinese market from the perspective of global supply chain repositioning. These enterprises hope Hainan can accelerate the certification and approval processes required for products to enter the Chinese mainland market and provide clear and stable institutional arrangements for value-added processing, re-export, and connection to domestic sales.
For enterprises from countries like Laos, which have highly integrated economic and trade relations with China, Hainan's attractiveness lies in its potential to provide calculable, quantifiable added value on top of existing bilateral or multilateral institutional arrangements. These enterprises hope that after entering Hainan, the overall tax burden will be significantly lower than existing pathways, customs clearance times and administrative procedures will be substantially shortened, and relevant institutional arrangements will possess long-term stability.
At the institutional and legal levels, ASEAN enterprises' judgments show a high degree of consistency. Multiple respondents explicitly stated that the key factors truly influencing investment decisions are the credibility, stability, and predictability of the institutions themselves. From the corporate perspective, the prerequisites for entering Hainan are concentrated in transparent and predictable market access rules, stable tax and tariff arrangements maintained consistently in practice, clear and feasible mechanisms for cross-border capital flow, profit repatriation, and exchange, and a dispute resolution mechanism with a level of legal protection acceptable to the international community. These factors collectively form the core dimensions for assessing institutional risk.
Compared to SMEs or export-oriented enterprises, most surveyed regional leading enterprises, when evaluating Hainan, clearly focus beyond short-term costs and policy incentives, turning instead to longer-term structural issues. These enterprises generally believe that the core elements of future regional competition are shifting from traditional cost advantages to technological capabilities, talent systems, and the completeness of industrial ecosystems. This long-term perspective suggests that Hainan's institutional design needs to not only address "how to enter China" but also further respond to the strategic proposition of "how to develop long-term and achieve continuous upgrading within China." For large enterprises, having this long-term development space is often more important than short-term policy dividends.
Synthesizing the judgments of different types of enterprises from various countries leads to a highly consistent conclusion: The investment value of the Hainan Free Trade Port has gained widespread recognition among ASEAN enterprises. Hainan is both an important window for China's advancement of high-level opening up and a crucial platform for testing institutional capabilities面向 (oriented towards) the international market. Different types of enterprises all look forward to Hainan providing them with "operational pathway explanations" to assist them in conducting practical layouts in China, particularly within the Hainan Free Trade Port.
**Prospects: Creating an Institutional Pathway for ASEAN Enterprises that is "Clear, Stable, and Usable"** Regarding the characteristic of the survey focusing primarily on Malaysian enterprises and chambers of commerce, it was pointed out that this is a realistic assessment based on the path of institutional communication. As Hainan's mainstream international communication institution, the Hainan International Communication Center has established its first Southeast Asian liaison center in Kuala Lumpur, indicating its assumed "hub role" in the framework of promoting regional economic and trade exchange using media as a bridge.
Regarding the predominance of SMEs in the survey, it was noted that large enterprises often already have investments in China, with decisions revolving more around "adjustments." SMEs are more sensitive to institutional uncertainty, thus better reflecting the real audience the Hainan Free Trade Port faces.
Concerning the shift in evaluation from "preferential intensity" to "institutional credibility," it is believed that enterprises are more concerned about policy stability. The Hainan Free Trade Port can continuously demonstrate the predictability of its institutional commitments to further expand its attractiveness to ASEAN enterprises.
It is considered that Hainan's institutional value lies in providing a low-cost, flexible (allowing entry and exit), and risk-controllable institutional buffer space. It was further added that in the current context, enterprises普遍 (generally) adopt "de-risking" strategies. If Hainan is perceived as an "experimental platform," its attractiveness might反而 (conversely) be more realistic.
It was also stated that Hainan's institutional design advantages—low thresholds, a relatively clear policy framework, and its function as a transshipment node to the Chinese mainland market—equip it with the conditions to attract ASEAN SMEs.
At the cognitive level, ASEAN enterprises have already incorporated the Hainan Free Trade Port into their assessment framework for the Chinese market, demonstrating a rational and positive perception based on geographical conditions, institutional design, and regional cooperation trends. Hainan, connecting both the Chinese mainland and facing ASEAN and broader international markets, possesses the institutional potential to carry two-way flow of factors. If it continuously improves institutional arrangements in financial便利 (convenience), legal environment, policy interpretation, and cross-border operations, Hainan is expected to become one of the important pivots for ASEAN enterprises entering the Chinese market during the restructuring of regional industrial and supply chains.
At the policy communication level, it is suggested to focus on institutional issues of concern to enterprises, strengthen scenario-based, operational policy interpretation mechanisms, and use case studies, advance rulings, one-stop consulting, and other methods to further enhance corporate understanding of Hainan Free Trade Port institutions. Providing more "operational pathway explanations" will offer more services for their entry into the Chinese market.
At the cooperation mechanism level, exploring the construction of government-enterprise dialogue and regional cooperation networks with Hainan as a platform is recommended. Establishing regular mechanisms in areas such as financial services, standard alignment, industrial collaboration, and talent mobility can help shape Hainan Free Trade Port into an institutional通道 (channel/passage) for ASEAN enterprises to enter the Chinese market that is "看得清 (clearly visible), 走得稳 (stable to traverse), and 用得上 (practically usable)."
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