The China (Chongqing) Pilot Free Trade Zone covers an area of 119.98 square kilometers, encompassing three areas: Liangjiang, Xiyong, and Guoyuan Port. It involves seven administrative districts: Yuzhong, Yubei, Jiangbei, Nan’an, Jiulongpo, Shapingba, and Beibei, and two open platforms: Liangjiang New Area and High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (Xiyong). 

Among them, the Liangjiang area covers 66.29 square kilometers, the Xiyong area covers 22.81 square kilometers, and the Guoyuan Port area covers 30.88 square kilometers.

The Liangjiang area focuses on building a high-end industrial and resource aggregation area, emphasizing developing emerging industries such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles, high-end equipment, electronic core components, cloud computing, and biomedicine. It also targets modern service industries, including modern finance, logistics, exhibition and commerce, high-tech services, and digital trade.

The Xiyong area focuses on building a demonstration zone to transform and upgrade processing trade. It aims to create an international processing trade industrial park and a land-based international transportation hub, with a key focus on developing manufacturing industries such as electronic information and intelligent equipment and service industries, including cross-border e-commerce and logistics.

The Guoyuan Port area focuses on building a multimodal logistics transfer center and promoting the construction of the shipping center on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It aims to develop Guoyuan Port into a modern hub port that integrates an inland open port, international logistics hub, and commodity trading center.

The China (Chongqing) Pilot Free Trade Zone emphasizes three functional axes regarding specific area selection. Firstly, it highlights the core functions of customs special supervision areas and bonded supervision places, with the implementation scope including the Chongqing Lianglu Guoyuan Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone, Chongqing Xiyong Comprehensive Bonded Zone, and Chongqing Railway Bonded Logistics Center (Type B).

Secondly, it emphasizes the functions of Chongqing’s comprehensive transportation hub and open ports, with the implementation scope including Guoyuan Port, Tuanjiecun Railway Station, and Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. This optimizes the three open platforms involving aviation, railway, and inland river ports, and these platforms integrate hub, bonded, and port functions. In addition, it also includes the Shuitu cloud computing central area to promote the construction of the communication hub.

Thirdly, it emphasizes the concentration of the service trade industry and open innovation. Areas with a relatively concentrated building economy, such as the Liangjiang New Area Service Trade Industrial Park, Jiangbeizui CBD, Danzishi CBD, and the High-Tech Industrial Development Zone in Jiulongpo district, are included in the implementation scope.

This article is updated on April 3, 2024.

(Ren Xiaoyu, as an intern, also contributed to this article.)