Pingtan gets into fast-track development by focusing on trade with Taiwan
"Midnight is coming. Please eat quickly and start the work again”, said the warehouse staff walking through the shelves. Wei Meiyu, the 53-year-old temporary packaging worker, finished her instant noodle quickly and went back to the packaging desk, waiting for the first goods needing to be packaged.
At 01:14 a.m., she had 63 paper boxes, the first batch of international goods that needed packaging. Three days before, these goods were transported from overseas to Jinjing Port in Pingtan and kept in the bonded warehouse in the city. On November 11, these goods were packaged by Wei Meiyu and her workmates, loaded on the logistics vehicles parking outside the warehouse, and were transported to various regions in China.
This scene was not possible back in 40 years ago.
At that time, Pingtan was an island county with poor transport accessibility. Though the island was closest to Taiwan among all islands in Chinese mainland, it didn’t have direct flight to Taiwan, or the large freight port. Pingtan is less than 5KM away from the Chinese mainland on the west. However, only one wharf provided ferry service. Pingtan became an isolated island when the ferry service was suspended.
The opportunity of Pingtan came in 2009. After Fuzhou (Pingtan) Comprehensive Pilot-test Zone was established, the county got into the fast track of trade development.
Difficult trade development
"When I was a young girl, villagers of my age loved to wear ORIENT watches”, which was the first Taiwan element in the mind of Wei Meiyu. She grew up in Zhongjia Village in Pingtan, which lies in the east of the main Pingtan island across Taiwan with Taiwan Strait in the middle. In the 1980s, fishermen in Pingtan often sailed the ship to the high seas to gather with Taiwan ships. "Taiwanese like butter fishes. Our fishermen would exchange butter fishes for watches.”
In Pingtan, that used to be a trade model with Taiwan. At the end of the 1990s when the relations with Taiwan became intense, very few Taiwanese could be seen close to the village where Wei Meiyu lived.
After the interchanges between Taiwan and Chinese mainland became blocked, Wei Yumei, like her town fellows in Pingtan, went onshore to find jobs. At that time, Nianggong Wharf was the sole way out of Pingtan. However, in more than half of the year, Pingtan would suffer from heavy wind. In July to September, the island was impacted by frequent typhoons. In the winter monsoon period, the island would be hit by northwest wind. In the typhoon days, ferry service in the wharf had to be suspended.
Because ferries had limited transport capacity, the cargo flow on Pingtan Island was also limited. Pingtan’s economic growth was constrained by the inaccessibility to Taiwan and by limited transport to the Chinese mainland. In 2004, the 2nd Meeting of the 10th Fujian People’s Congress proposed the strategy of building the Economic Zone on the West Side of the Straits. Exchanges with Taiwan receives great emphasis. Pingtan, which is closed to Taiwan, has become focus of development. As a result, the Pingtan Straits Bridge, which had been planned for 16 years by Pingtan County, commenced the construction in 2008. With the highway infrastructures connecting Pingtan with outside world, the island development starts to boom.
Establish the pilot-test zone
To facilitate building of the Economic Zone on the West Side of the Straits, the State Council of China released document in May 2009, making a few instructions on accelerating development of the Economic Zone, e.g., building the special customs supervision zone in Fujian Province.
In this year, Fujian Province started to look for proper islands to set up the special customs supervision zone for across-Straits cooperation, which would function as the pilot-test zone focusing on cooperation and trade with Taiwan. In the end, Pingtan was selected by the Provincial Government because of its adjacency to Taiwan. It became the Fuzhou (Pingtan) Comprehensive Pilot-test Zone, and the sole of its kind on the Chinese mainland.
On December 25, 2010, the Pingtan Straits Bridge was put into operation after three-year building. In the past, it would take at least 15 minutes to take ferry from Pingtan to Fuqing on the bank. After the bridge was put into use, it now takes only a few minutes. In 2012, the Straits Ship connecting Pingtan with Taichung was opened, shortening the travel time to three hours alone.
In June 2014, the Pingtan Taiwan Duty-free Market was opened, which stays about 1KM away from the Aoqian Strait Wharf as the terminal of Strait Ship. It becomes the second small-commodity duty-free market oriented towards Taiwan, after the Dadeng Island in Xiamen of Chinese mainland. In the duty-free market, Lin Qiaoying purchased two shops. In July Pingtan Customs were set up and duty-free market on the island became the special customs supervision zone. Merchants from Taiwan have access to one-year free rent for every two years. And each ton of goods from Taiwan would enjoy 300 RMB subsidies. At the same time, each Taiwanese merchant enjoys 8,000 RMB housing subsidy. After the duty-free market started its business, more Taiwanese merchants are doing business in Pingtan.
Promote model of "bonded import”
On July 15, 2014, the customs were put into operation in Pingtan, which is surrounded by seas and has only one bridge connecting with the mainland. When Pingtan Customs were in the blueprint, it designed the innovative supervision approach, namely, including the entire Pingtan into the closed supervision scope of the customs. All goods entering Pingtan, when stored in designated zones in it, can enjoy postponed payment of taxes or tariff. As a result, the entire Pingtan Island is qualified to become the bonded zone.
In the same year, the Central Government of China proposed disseminating the experience of Shanghai FTZ. Fujian Province submitted the plan of labeling Xiamen, Pingtan Island, Jiangyin Port Zone in Fuzhou and part of Quanzhou as the FTZ. In April 2015, China (Fujian) Free Trade Pilot Test Zone was established, marking Pingtan, Fuzhou and Xiamen section have established the Fujian Free Trade Zone.
Pingtan, after becoming the FTZ, has expanded its support to trade with Taiwan to all cross-border trade.
Cross-border e-commerce became one of the industries receiving strongest support from the FTZ. According to Zhang Shufu in the Logistics Division of Economic Development Bureau in Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Test Zone Administration, Pingtan released the news about cross-border e-commerce in 2014. To cultivate local cross-border e-commerce companies, in March 2015, Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Test Zone spearheaded to set up Fujian KJT E-commerce Co., Ltd., which is dedicated to serving cross-border e-commerce companies. The new company is responsible for attracting the e-commerce platforms, logistics operators and warehouse companies along the industrial chain of cross-border e-commerce to set up business in Pingtan.
At the end of 2015, Pingtan passed the approval and became one of the second batch pilot-test cities in cross-border e-commerce bonded import. In May 2017, the 11,000m2 Across-Strait Express Delivery Center planned by Pingtan government was put into use, which contains bonded warehouse and supervises the cross-border logistics.
In 2018, cross-border e-commerce in Pingtan has been growing rapidly. The shipped goods value in import of bonded goods in Pingtan, from January to October 2018, reached 513 million RMB and growing by 304% YOY. "Year 2018 marks the transition of Pingtan cross-border e-commerce development", said Zhang Shufu. "In 2019, we plan to apply for 100 million RMB to support the industry.”
