The Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone, China’s current exclusive special comprehensive bonded zone, built to promote further opening-up of the country, announced to put its first phase into use on Saturday, after it passed central government’s acceptance tests on Tuesday.
The Yangshan Zone in Shanghai’s Pudong new area, which was approved for construction by the State Council in January, takes on an important role of promoting China’s all-round and high-level opening-up, said Li Guo, vice minister of the General Administration of Customs.
The zone emphasizes the free enterprise, simplifies the declaration process to the greatest extent, and cancels unnecessary trade supervisions and permissions, Li said at the Yangshan Zone’s opening ceremony on Saturday.
With a planning area of 25.31 square kilometers in the southeast corner of Shanghai, the zone enjoys better comprehensive transport conditions than any other same-level bonded zones in the world, said Shanghai deputy mayor Chen Yin.
The zone is located at the central junction the Chinese mainland’s coastline and estuary of Yangtze River, and is close to the world’s largest deep water container port (Shanghai Port) and the third-largest airport for air cargo (Pudong International Airport), Chen Yin introduced.
Customs authority said the zone is called a “special” bonded zone because it provides highly competitive facilities for local importers and exporters.
For the goods that need to undergo quarantine, for instance, the quarantine inspection can be carried out inside the zone with the approval of the customs. “This is a major breakthrough,” Chen Zhenchong, director of Department of Free Trade Zone and Special Control Area under the General Administration of Customs, said on Saturday.
Other policies such as revoking customs management of local enterprises’ account books, canceling storage deadlines for the goods, and building an information disclosure system of enterprise credit, are also enacted to offer conveniences to the firms in the zone, Chen Zhenchong added.
The zone’s first phase, a 14.27 square kilometer-fenced area that contains the former Yangshan Free Trade Port Area, established in 2005, has been put into use under customs inspection.
“We will speed up fencing other parts of the Zone,” Chen Yin said, adding that all the zone’s areas will be fenced and put under inspection by the end of this year.
The establishment of the Yangshan Zone will focus on promoting local development in fields including trade in goods and services, high-end manufacturing, value-added services of international shipping and large aircraft industry, Chen Yin said.
A container dock of Yangshan Port in Shanghai. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)
