Shanghai: China has newly approved two bonded areas along the country's longest waterway, the Yangtze, one on the upper stream in the inland Chongqing Municipality, and the other at the river mouth in Zhangjiagang City, east China's Jiangsu Province.
According to press conferences held in the respective cities on Tuesday, the Cuntan Bonded Area in Chongqing is China's first inland bonded area, and Zhangjiagang is the first county-level port city in China to have a bonded area.
Bonded port areas enjoy such favorable policies as tax rebates for exports and free tax for trading within the area.
The 8.37-sq km Cuntan Bonded Area centers both the Cuntan Harbor and the Jiangbei International Airport. The bonded area will be completed in 2015, said Chongqing Vice Mayor Huang Qifan on Tuesday.
"The Cuntan Bonded Area will be built into a multi-functional area with most advanced logistics and preferential policies," he said. "It will also become an accelerator for the opening up of central and eastern inland cities."
The Zhangjiagang Port, China's largest river port, is an important hub for navigation to the sea through the Yangtze water channel.
The approved bonded area at the port is 4.1 sq km, which will be used as a distribution center for bulk cargo, said Xu Zhonggao, deputy head of the administration commission of the Zhangjiagang Port bonded area.
He declined to give a specific schedule for the bonded area's operation time, neither did the administration commission of the bonded area in Chongqing give the operation time.
Previous to the two, China had established ten such free trade port areas in the coastal areas from north to south. [17/12/08]
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