Coastal development zone forges ahead with innovation

Yangpu to pilot new initiatives and practices for the development of Hainan Free Trade Port

The skies over Yangpu Peninsula in Beibu Gulf are blue, and the clear ocean rolls gently onto the broad shores. Once a barren wasteland, this area is now home to a bustling scene of cranes, container trucks, and giant ships anchored at port.

In 1992, the State Council approved the construction of Yangpu Economic Development Zone in Hainan province. Yangpu became the first State-level development zone in China to be funded by foreign investment and to benefit from bonded zone policies.

On June 1, 2020, the Overall Plan for the Development of Hainan Free Trade Port was released. It assigned to Yangpu a key role — a pioneer and pilot zone for developing Hainan Free Trade Port, serving to accumulate practical experience for guiding the port's development and the implementation of separate customs controls for the whole island. Since then, Yangpu has embraced new historic opportunities.

The plan includes five unique policies for making Yangpu a ship registration port.

At present, 33 international vessels, equaling 5.16 million deadweight metric tons, are registered at Yangpu Port, placing Hainan second in the country for registered international ships in terms of total cargo tonnage.

Its container throughput exceeded 1 million TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, for the first time in 2020. Since then, the port has posted the fastest growth rate among national seaports with a container throughput of over 1 million TEUs for two consecutive years. It has opened 39 domestic and foreign trade routes, which serve almost all coastal Chinese cities and major ports in Southeast Asia, to create a new configuration of shipping routes to serve domestic and foreign trade over both long and short distances.

In Yangpu, the bonded port is lined with rows of factories, bonded warehouses and exhibition centers. All kinds of business formats across diverse fields are flourishing there, from grain and oil processing to offshore international trade, testing, maintenance and intelligent survey technology for product research and development.

Hainan's free port plan envisions that by 2025, all necessary preparations will be completed for the timely introduction of separate customs controls for the whole of Hainan Island.

Yangpu Bonded Port Area has taken the lead in pioneering related preferential tax policies. As an important vehicle for implementing measures concerning free trade port policies and systems in the initial development stage, Yangpu Bonded Port Area helped to boost a year-on-year GDP increase of 34.2 percent in 2021 for the Yangpu Economic Development Zone. The policy incentives have attracted many enterprises to set up shop in Yangpu. As of July 4, 2022, there were 3,398 registered enterprises in Yangpu Bonded Port Area.

"A grain and oil processing plant with an annual production capacity of more than 1 million tons like this ours would usually take two years to build," said Zhang Hui, chairman of Hainan Ausca International Oils and Grains. She explained that the company was the first large-scale entity to establish a physical presence in Yangpu Bonded Port Area after the release of the overall plan. In just over six months, it built a modern production base for oil processing, which has the largest domestic rapeseed-meal storage silos.

Yangpu Bonded Port Area has led the way in the innovation of government services, implementing a slew of new policies. These include granting approval for access and operation simultaneously, permitting projects to begin as soon as approval is granted, processing all administrative items through a single window, implementing a "declaration in advance" policy for port customs clearance, and a "two-step customs declaration" process that allows importers to complete the final step after delivery of goods has been taken, as well as a two-stage process where imported goods can first clear customs before approval is acquired for their sale and use in the Chinese market. Such measures are part of Yangpu's drive to become a trendsetter in policy for developing a free trade port.

The strategic decision to promote the integrated development of neighboring Danzhou city and Yangpu Port was made with an eye to the overall imperatives of developing a free trade port in Hainan and promoting coordinated regional development. As their development accelerated in recent years, Danzhou and Yangpu assumed a more prominent position in Hainan's coordinated regional development framework.

At the end of 2021, Hainan made the decision to promote the integrated development of Danzhou and Yangpu in a bid to build a third pole for high-quality development in Hainan. In May 2022, guidelines on supporting the integrated development of the two were issued, along with supplementary measures. The guidelines called for a range of plans and policies concerning the initial development of a free trade port to be trialed throughout the Danzhou-Yangpu region in order to accumulate experience on a larger scale.

The Danzhou-Yangpu region boasts port facilities, production capacities, and an urban city. At the beginning of July 2022, several highquality industrial projects with a total investment of 34.4 billion yuan ($4.93 billion) were launched in the region. Amid the vibrant development atmosphere, a bright future is steadily unfolding for the integrated development of Danzhou and Yangpu.