The Belt and Road Commodity Exhibition & Trading Center (Airport) opened on December 27, offering citizens another choice for purchasing Belt and Road (B&R) featured commodities.

Bonded port area

To improve the life quality of citizens, Chongqing Bonded Port Area (CBPA) built the Exhibition and Trading Center to give them access to the B&R featured commodities through the Bonded+Exhibition and Trading.

Beneficial for consumers, cost-effective for enterprises

According to a person in charge of CBPA, this center, formerly known as Chongqing International Exhibition & Trading Center, was opened in the Water Port Functional Area of Chongqing Bonded Port Area in 2014.

Currently, the Belt and Road Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center in the Water Port Functional Area has set up featured commodity exhibition areas for 20 countries, including Germany, Switzerland, and Poland, as well as 50,000 types of import commodities as maternal and baby products, food and clothing.

The “Bonded+Exhibition and Trading” refers to that, without paying any import duty or fees in advance, enterprises within the special customs controlling zone and registered at the customs can transport import commodities to the places outside the special controlling zone for exhibition and marketing only by providing guarantees. “Simply put, enterprises are required to pay duty for exhibited import commodities only after they are sold.”

Four citywide distribution centers to be ready

According to the data provided by CBPA, the Water Port Trading Center promoted the import-export trade turnover of RMB 10.5 billion from January to October this year, up by 24%.

As the first national 4A bonded experience tourist attraction within the special customs controlling zone and the Belt and Road National Education and Training Base for Integrated Development of Business, Travel, and Culture, it not only serves as a trade center but also performs functions of international exchange and tourist attraction. Currently, the center is cooperating with Chongqing Municipal Commission of Culture and Tourism Development and the Foreign Affairs Office to build the International Exchange Center in Midwest China and the Bonded Port B&R Window and strive for becoming the Intellectual Property Protection Demonstration Zone.

The opening airport trading center is positioned as the import agricultural products distribution center in western China, covering an area of about 8,000 sqm and attracting over 30 enterprises.

Apart from the airport and water port centers, CBPA is preparing four distribution centers citywide. Among them, the Authorized Distribution Center for Import Commodities in CBPA Fairy Mountain Branch has been opened on August 24 this year; the Qianjiang Branch has been decorated and well-stocked and will open by this year-end; the site selection of other two distribution centers has been finished. They will be located at the Guoneng Outlets in the Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone and Jiefangbei Business Circle in Yuzhong District, respectively, and are slated to open next year.

Multi-dimensional innovation of service trade

The Bonded+Exhibition and Trading is only part of CBPA’s “Bonded+” service trade innovation.

By leveraging preferential policies (such as the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity or CCI) in Liangjiang New Area, Special Customs Controlling Area, China (Chongqing) Pilot Free Trade Zone (CFTZ), etc., CBPA innovates the new service trade business type featuring the bonded industry clusters, to turn it into a new engine and driving force for high-quality development.

In terms of the Bonded+Cross-border E-commerce, CBPA has introduced the national top three cross-border e-commerce enterprises, namely Alibaba, Vipshop, and Kaola, in a bid to drive the small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprise clusters to develop in coordination.

In terms of the Bonded+Aviation Industry, CBPA cooperates with base airlines such as Chongqing Airlines and Spring Airlines to explore the business of aircraft leasing, making Chongqing the first among the third batch of pilot free trade zones to develop the business of aircraft leasing.

In terms of the Bonded+Headquarters Economy, Chongqing learns from the Shanghai Waigaoqiao trade facilitation model and grasps the opportunity of CCI to attract key enterprises to set up regional headquarters in the port area. This year, enterprises such as Global 500 Trafigura Group (Singapore) and B&Q (UK), Antong Holdings, and Beidahuang set up regional headquarters here, with the headquarters import-export turnover expected to reach RMB 13 billion.

In terms of the Bonded+Port Logistics, seven special customs controlling zones on meat, fruits, frozen aquatic products, edible marine animals, etc., have been approved, and the initial import medicine qualification will be obtained soon. At present, the Airport International Trade and Logistics Park have been built, with an area of 3.74 square kilometers and a putting-in-service storage area of about 880,000 square meters.

Various types of Bonded+businesses have flourished and driven the innovative development of service trade and boosted the leading economic indicators of CBPA to maintain rapid double-digit growth. In 2019, the total above-standard industrial output value of the area is expected to exceed RMB 90 billion, and the total import-export turnover to exceed RMB 110 billion, accounting for one-fifth of the city.

Source: Shangyou News