On July 9, the Port and Logistics Office of Chongqing Municipal People's Government and the Port and Logistics Office of Sichuan Provincial People's Government signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Port and Logistics Cooperation in Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and the Single Window Cooperation Agreement on Sichuan-Chongqing International Trade in Chongqing, aiming to drive the high-quality development of regional ports and logistics industry and advance the construction of Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.

In accordance with the memorandum of cooperation, both sides pledged to ramp up cooperation in mechanism construction and planning coordination, strategic corridors, water transport, and logistics, passenger and cargo transportation and aviation, highway logistics, ports, regional logistics coordination, and logistics industry, so as to push for the coordinated development of the logistics industry in the two regions.

The focus of strengthening cooperation on strategic corridors is to jointly develop and share resources such as destinations, stations, freight space, freight forwarding, transportation and information of China Railway Express; efforts will also be stepped up to attract and encourage foreign countries, regions, and enterprises to participate in the construction of the International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC), jointly establish the ILSTC logistics industry development alliance, and cultivate international ILSTC brands, so as to jointly get integrated into the construction of the ILSTC and the Belt and Road.

The key task of strengthening water transport and logistics cooperation is to support shipping and logistics enterprises in Sichuan and Chongqing to extend their service chains, transform whole-process logistics service providers, and constantly innovate service contents through contracts, mergers and acquisitions, and other forms; Sichuan and Chongqing will also support closer cooperation among Guoyuan Port, Wanzhou Port, Luzhou Port, and Yibin Port, and jointly build an east-bound sea passage.

The key point of intensifying aviation cooperation is to encourage and support cargo airlines to set up bases in Chengdu-Chongqing hub airport for cross-flight routes; while in the passenger transport field, base airlines in Chengdu and Chongqing are encouraged to treat the airport in the two regions as the same market and develop them simultaneously and strengthen the coordination of market and policies in the air transport area.

The focus of stepping up port cooperation is to secure the support of the General Administration of Customs to facilitate the transit of import and export goods from Chengdu and Chongqing in coastal and border ports, and to jointly strive for more pilot policies to facilitate cross-border trade in Chengdu and Chongqing. Meanwhile, the two regions will continue to improve efficiency and reduce fees at their ports to enhance the sense of gain for import and export enterprises.

In strengthening cooperation in the logistics industry, the two regions will focus on jointly studying the spatial layout of local logistics parks, sources of goods, influence range, and transportation mode, so as to arrange and construct logistics parks in a rational way; they will also jointly carry out research on cold chain logistics, and jointly establish the cold chain logistics system in producing areas and markets. They will build large-scale cold chain logistics centers in urban areas, cold chain logistics centers in producing areas (counties/district and towns/townships), as well as cold chain logistics and distribution centers for commercial circulation.

The focus of ratcheting up cooperation in single-window services for international trade is to jointly seek policy and resource support from the central government under the current policy framework, further improve the efficiency and level of local single-window services, and jointly promote cross-regional cooperation with other provincial regions along the Belt and Road.

Next, the two sides will further expand and deepen cooperation under the framework of the memorandum of cooperation and the confirmed working mechanism, and explore new approaches and ideas in regional coordination, industrial coordination and channel coordination of port logistics industry of the two regions, so as to jointly promote the construction of Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.