Smart port drives regional trade growth

A panorama of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in December. [Qian Wenpan/for China Daily]

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge capitalizes on logistics advantages to enhance exports

Inside the export inspection area at the Zhuhai port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, a 55-kilometer-long mega sea-crossing span in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, intelligent machines are sorting e-commerce goods daily.

Batches of e-commerce goods flow through the machines, with inspection officers carefully examining export documents and comparing them with scans produced by the machine.

If a scan reveals something questionable, customs officers open and inspect the packages of goods. According to the bridge customs supervision department, it takes less than one hour to complete an inspection of a batch of parcels.

Customs statistics showed that the export value of goods transported through the cross-border e-commerce management platform at the bridge's port from January to October reached 48.66 billion yuan ($6.82 billion), a year-on-year increase of 72.1 percent.

The bridge port covers the import and export of goods for all 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland. The market involves over 230 countries and regions, an increase from 105 in 2018.

In 2022 alone, the import and export volume via the bridge's Zhuhai port increased 96.1 percent year-on-year to 269.73 billion yuan, the bridge customs said.

"The bridge, as a major channel linking Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, has greatly improved the efficiency of economic and trade activities between Guangdong and the two special administrative regions, helping drive the high-quality development of trade," said Guo Yanhai, deputy director of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Customs.