On April 13, while celebrating the 30th anniversary of Hainan being made a province and a special economic zone, President Xi Jinping unveiled grand plans to build it into a pilot free trade zone and gradually explore the building of a free trade port with Chinese characteristics.

"We will make sincere efforts to turn the new district into a concentrated area to showcase the construction of the China (Hainan) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and make it an innovative zone for comprehensively deepening reform and opening-up, a display of the country's ecological civilization pilot zone, an experience area for international tourism and consumption and a demonstration of Hainan as a zone offering services and support for the country's major strategies," Fu Xuanchao, a member of the new district planning and leadership group and director of the Hainan Provincial Development and Reform Commission, told a news conference in Haikou on Sunday.