A man walks at the entrance of the new Shanghai Free Trade Zone in Pudong district, Shanghai September 29, 2013. China has formally announced detailed plans for a new free-trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai, touted as the country's biggest potential economic reform since Deng Xiaoping used a similar zone in Shenzhen to pry open a closed economy to trade in 1978. In an announcement on Friday from the State Council, or cabinet, China said it will open up its largely sheltered services sector to foreign competition in the zone and use it as a testbed for bold financial reforms, including a convertible yuan and liberalized interest rates. Economists consider both areas key levers for restructuring the world's second-largest economy and putting it on a more sustainable growth path. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)
A man walks at the entrance of the new Shanghai Free Trade Zone in Pudong district, Shanghai September 29, 2013. China has formally announced detailed plans for a new free-trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai, touted as the country’s biggest potential economic reform since Deng Xiaoping used a similar zone in Shenzhen to pry open a closed economy to trade in 1978. In an announcement on Friday from the State Council, or cabinet, China said it will open up its largely sheltered services sector to foreign competition in the zone and use it as a testbed for bold financial reforms, including a convertible yuan and liberalized interest rates. Economists consider both areas key levers for restructuring the world’s second-largest economy and putting it on a more sustainable growth path. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

China should promote the free-trade zone to other regions especially in the nation’s central and western areas, Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday in Shanghai, where the first zone was launched in September 2013.

The nation should promote free-trade account reforms to places that meet qualifications, Li said, according to a statement posted Thursday on the State Council website. He said the nation supports the opening up of capital markets.

Li’s endorsement comes as Shanghai’s free-trade zone struggles to catch on. A March survey of more than 370 members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found that almost three-quarters of respondents saw no tangible benefits for their businesses in the zone. Li had supported the free-trade zone as a proving ground for financial policies, including freer yuan convertibility and interest-rate liberalization.

As of September, only about half of the zone’s more than 50 service-and-manufacturing measures had been utilized by companies, said Shen Xiaoming, the party secretary of Shanghai’s Pudong district who also serves as chairman of the zone’s administrative committee.