Pingtan’s Initiatives to Be Built into the First Destination for Taiwan Residents’ and Taiwan-Funded Enterprises’ Entry into Mainland China
As mainland’s closest island to Taiwan, Pingtan’s “set for Taiwan and special for Taiwan”. Driven by multiple engines of “pilot zone + free trade area + international tourism island”, this once unknown island is attracting an increasing number of Taiwan entrepreneurs and young Taiwan residents for cross-strait businesses and entrepreneurship. Accompanied with implementation of numerous pioneering policies for Taiwan, Pingtan has been taken as the “window”, and the channels connecting Taiwan residents in Pingtan and mainland China as well as different places throughout the world have become smoother, which will bring more diversified opportunities.
Given the growing fame of “Common Home of Compatriots on Both Sides of the Strait”, the number of tourists visiting Pingtan for atmosphere of Taiwan has been growing, which led to better retailing businesses.
“Pingtan has introduced the routes of ‘CSF’, ‘Lina Wheel’ and ‘Taipei Express’ successively in just a few years, and the three offshore direct ro-ro passenger shipping routes and container shipping routes between Pingtan and Taichung, Taipei and Kaohsiung have brought Taiwan’s products to different areas of mainland China, which provided another opportunity for my career.” Targeting on Pingtan’s pioneering policies for Taiwan, Wang Dayou, a Taiwan entrepreneur from Taichung quit his white-collar job in Taiwan and joined trade industry five years ago, and opened a store in Pingtan-Taiwan Commodity Duty-free Market with his two brothers. “Benefited from preferential policies of the duty-free market, 200,000 to 300,000 yuan can be saved on a yearly basis after deduction and exemption of customs duty and VAT.”
It’s worth mentioning that Pingtan has also promulgated a series of reward and subsidy policies to encourage marine logistics and import of agricultural and fish products from Taiwan. “Pingtan gives 800 yuan of reward and subsidy for each ton of Taiwan’s fruits imported through direct shipping from Port of Pingtan, and grants 0.5 yuan and 0.25 yuan of reward for each dollar of Taiwan’s fresh and frozen fish products imported from Port of Pingtan respectively, which can directly reduce logistic cost of freights by 3% to 5%.” According to Chen Xiaozhen, CEO of Pingtan-Taiwan Federation of Enterprises and Entrepreneurs, the series of reward and subsidy policies did not only reduce the burden of entrepreneurs on both sides of the strait, but also aroused their enthusiasm for cooperation.
To give convenience to Taiwan residents in Pingtan, in addition to “Taiwan Residents Service Hall” in Area Administrative Service Center, Pingtan has established China’s first “Taiwan Resident and Taiwan-Funded Enterprise Service Center” in April this year, which has got seven types of service windows of travel convenience, project investment, fund cashing, livelihood protection, professional qualification certification, financial service and legal rights protection. It offers convenient services for Taiwan residents’ and Taiwan-funded enterprises’ entrepreneurship in Pingtan through “integrated online platform and offline services” provided by “Taiwan employees + mainland employees”.
