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Highlighted numbers of China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone

Source: China.org.cn Updated: 2020-09-08

On Sept. 4, the China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was presented on the Internet as part of the online activity "Walk in Free Trade Zone" hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China. At the online meeting, the achievements of the Shandong Pilot FTZ were highlighted in numbers.

The China (Shandong) Pilot FTZ was inaugurated on Aug. 30, 2019. Covering a total area of 119.98 square kilometers, it consists of three areas, including Jinan, the provincial capital, and the coastal cities of Qingdao and Yantai.

Over the past year, it has advanced its institutional reforms and innovations, promoted investment liberalization and trade facilitation, developed its marine economy, and deepened China-Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) cooperation at the sub-national level, thus playing an important role in the development of the Bohai Economic Rim. 

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National Supercomputing Center in the Jinan Area. [File photo/Chinanews.com]

Jinan Area

The Jinan Area, of 37.99 square kilometers, prioritizes five major sectors of information technology, artificial intelligence, industrial finance, healthcare and care of the elderly, as well as the cultural sector. 

With a more favorable business environment, by the end of August 2020, the Jinan Area had registered more than 12,500 new enterprises with registered capital of over 180 billion yuan, driving the total number of enterprises in this region to more than 52,000. Companies can be established in as short as 35 minutes, with the time needed for submitting documents dropping by an average of 61%.

The main business revenue of the information technology and high-end equipment industries have both exceeded 300 billion yuan. Both the biomedicine and health care industries have reached 100 billion yuan in terms of industrial scale. In the first seven months of 2020, the total import and export volume of the area amounted to 38.24 billion yuan.

In terms of science and technology, the Shandong Institute of Industrial Technology gained more than 300 patents for inventions, transformed the achievements of over 200 cutting-edge industrial technologies and incubated 77 high-tech enterprises, leading to a total social investment of more than 20 billion yuan.

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The Qingdao-Japan International Business Club. [File photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Qingdao Area

Qingdao Area, covering 52 square kilometers, prioritizes the five major fields of modern marine industries, foreign trade, shipping logistics, modern finance and advanced manufacturing. It's committed to becoming an international shipping hub in Northeast Asia, a major innovation center in China's eastern coastal areas and a demonstration area for marine economic development.

As of July 16, Qingdao Area had added 22,154 new market entities, among which 133 were foreign-funded with registered capital of US$4.085 billion.

By virtue of its proximity to Japan and the ROK, Qingdao has furthered its AEO mutual recognition with the two countries. At present, it is home to nine advanced certified enterprises and 22 general certified enterprises. 

The Qingdao-Japan International Business Club, inaugurated on June 19 and striving to become a bridgehead for Japanese enterprises to enter the Chinese market, has witnessed contract signings for 20 projects, involving banking, legal consulting, medical care and intelligent testing equipment, among others.

As for cross-border e-commerce development, in the first half of 2020, the import and export value of cross-border e-commerce retail in Qingdao Qianwan Free Trade Port Zone and Qingdao West Coast Bonded Area of Qingdao Area reached 640 million yuan, 11 times that of the same period last year.  

The Qingdao Qianwan Container Terminal is an important transit base for iron ore, crude oil, rubber, cotton and other bulk commodities into China, with the cargo throughput and container throughput ranking sixth and seventh respectively in the world.

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A view of China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone Yantai Area [File photo/JiaoDong.net]

Yantai Area

Located in Yantai Economic & Technological Development Area (YEDA) and covering a 29.99-square-kilometer district, it consists of two State-level industrial parks, namely Sino-Korea (Yantai) Industrial Park and the western district of the Yantai Bonded Port Zone.

This area prioritizes high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, new generations of information technology, energy conservation and environmental protection, biomedicine as well as production-supporting service industry. It aims to become a pilot area of China-ROK trade and investment cooperation, an intelligent manufacturing base of marine equipment and a demonstration area of domestic and international technology transfer.

Yantai Area has more than 50,000 market entities, of which four are valued at more than 10 billion yuan and 30 more than one billion yuan. It's also home to 124 financial institutions of various types and 180 funds with a total scale of 140 billion yuan.

For the Yantai Area, being closest to South Korea among all China's free trade zones, deepened China-ROK cooperation is a major focus. At present, the number of new ROK-funded projects in this area has more than doubled year-on-year. Over 540 ROK-invested enterprises and 20 projects funded by Korean enterprises on the Fortune Global 500 list have settled in YEDA. In order to strengthen the cooperation with Japan, Yantai Area initiated the building of the 12.7-square-kilometer Sino-Japan industrial park in 2019. 

China set up its first pilot FTZ--China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in 2013. Since then, the country has seen the emergence of 18 FTZs in the municipalities of Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing as well as provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hainan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Yunnan, Guangxi and Heilongjiang. The coastal provinces all have the FTZ settled.