In April of this year, the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone located in the Lingang New Area completed the acceptance of a new round of expansion and customs sealing, adding an additional 3.58 square kilometers of enclosed area, creating favorable conditions for the development of new industrial formats such as aviation manufacturing, bonded maintenance and testing, and bonded processing manufacturing. To date, the 28.83 square kilometers of the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone has achieved full customs sealing.

As the only special comprehensive free trade zone in our country, with the continuous "growth" of its area, the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone has been continuously advancing institutional innovation, cultivating new formats and functions, highlighting the advantage of "special among the special", and leading high-quality development. Data shows that since its establishment in 2020, the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone has maintained a good development trend, with the total amount and growth rate of main indicators ranking at the forefront of the country. Last year, the total import and export volume reached 262.1 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 37.5% since 2020; the total operating income of the area was 1,265.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47%, with an average annual compound growth rate of 60% since 2020; the sales volume of goods above the quota was 588.5 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 49% since 2020. From January to June this year, the import and export volume was 136.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.24%; the sales volume of goods above the quota was 450 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%.

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The linkage of the area and port has created an automobile import and export distribution center. The Nan Port wharf in the Lingang New Area is "hot and hot" in automobile import and export business. In the early morning of July 31, the Maltese "Titus" roll-on/roll-off ship left the Nan Port wharf after loading and unloading more than 6,700 cars, including 5,416 imported cars, setting a single ship record for the wharf since the start of automobile import and export distribution business.

The "Overall Plan for Comprehensively Docking with International High-Standard Economic and Trade Rules and Promoting High-Level Institutional Openness of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone" issued by the State Council clearly states that piloting the integrated management of the area and port in the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone is allowed, logistics and processing in the port area are allowed, and the limitation on the storage period of goods is canceled. With the "direct release" model first created by the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone applied to the Nan Port wharf, the customs procedures for import and export have been greatly simplified, and the customs time for the area's automobiles, engineering equipment, wind power equipment, and fresh cold chain has been reduced from the original 48 hours to within 12 hours.

Once, the electric vehicles produced by Tesla's Shanghai super factory needed to be transported by land from the Waigaoqiao Haotong wharf more than 60 kilometers away to "go to sea". Now, at the Nan Port wharf 10 kilometers away from the Shanghai factory, these vehicles pass through "invisible" supervision for rapid customs clearance, and the "Lingang-made" new cars can be shipped as soon as they come off the production line.

The institutional innovation of the area and port linkage has also driven the rapid development of the bonded automobile import and export distribution business, which is "outside" for both import and export, helping the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone to build an automobile import and export distribution center. In the past, an Indian-made Suzuki car exported to Central and South America needed to be transited in South Korea, involving multiple transits and import and export declarations, with cumbersome procedures. Now, after the vehicle arrives at Shanghai's Nan Port, it enters the adjacent Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone for bonded storage, and then takes advantage of the well-connected routes of the Port of Shanghai to go to more than 10 countries and regions around the world at the right time. According to estimates, through the two-way "direct release" policy for import and export, the customs time for automobiles entering and leaving the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone can be saved by about 50%, achieving a win-win situation for the wharf, ship owners, and car companies.

"By promoting the linkage of the port and special comprehensive free trade zone through institutional innovation, it not only solves the problem of insufficient hinterland resources for the port wharf but also helps to improve the utilization rate of ship cabins, enhance logistics efficiency, and reduce operating costs." Lin Yisong, director of the Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone Office of the Lingang New Area Management Committee, said. Data shows that in the first half of this year, the Nan Port wharf completed the loading and unloading of 466,000 complete vehicles, of which foreign trade imports and exports reached 219,000, a year-on-year increase of 35%; international transit of automobiles reached 47,000, a year-on-year increase of 161%.

Cultivating new formats and functions, releasing new development momentum. In May of this year, the Argentine commodity bonded display and trading center opened by the water drop lake, building a new bonded display and trading model that integrates display experience, brand promotion, product distribution, e-commerce sales, and trade distribution. After Argentine imported meat enters the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, it undergoes bonded processing and manufacturing, bonded display and trading, to better meet domestic consumer demand.China is Argentina's second-largest trading partner, with over 75% of Argentina's beef exports going to China. The new business model of bonded exhibition and trading has promoted the optimization and upgrading of goods trade, effectively reducing corporate costs while also enriching the consumer scenarios and commercial atmosphere in the main urban area of Lin-gang.

Relying on the institutional advantages of high-level opening, the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone actively expands new business models and models such as bonded maintenance and testing, bonded processing and manufacturing, bonded R&D and design, and cross-border e-commerce with the "bonded +". GE Aviation's "4S shop" is located here, which is the first professional engine quick repair factory in China. It will provide designated model engine quick repair services for customers in China and the Asian region. Chinese customers can quickly maintain and upgrade engines without going abroad, and also enjoy the policy dividends of "overseas engine repair", greatly reducing the tax burden on airlines.

In addition, the first "two ends outside" electronic product bonded maintenance, the first whole vehicle bonded maintenance project, and the world's first full high-temperature superconducting tokamak device bonded R&D project have also been successively launched. In the first half of this year, the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone achieved a bonded maintenance import and export value of 10.192 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 70%.

Improve service level, build a global shipping hub

Container throughput has been ranked first in the world for 14 consecutive years, which is the core strength of Shanghai's construction of an international shipping center. However, the high-quality development of shipping still depends on the word "service". Accelerating the improvement of high-end shipping service shortcomings and enhancing the global allocation capability of shipping resources, the new area of Lin-gang and the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Free Trade Zone are helping Shanghai Port to accelerate the construction of a global shipping hub through innovative innovations in the field of shipping services.

At present, the international shipping industry has reached a crossroads of green transformation, which is an opportunity for Shanghai to overtake. After the normalization of bonded liquefied natural gas (LNG) refueling for international navigation ships, Yangshan Port has turned its attention to the new track of green methanol fuel refueling, and in April this year, the first green methanol "ship-to-ship" synchronous refueling operation in China was launched.

For green methanol, a new type of energy that is currently favored by the world, Lin-gang has carried out in-depth layout of the industrial chain - strengthening the planning of methanol refueling facilities, promoting the construction and transformation of infrastructure; promoting the maritime department to issue the first domestic safety management method for water methanol refueling operations; taking the lead in establishing the Green Shipping Industry Alliance, continuously expanding the "circle of friends" of preparation, transportation, certification, carbon trading, and industrial funds; establishing the world's first online trading platform and training certification center for green methanol fuel... An industrial ecosystem is forming around green methanol refueling. Lin Yisong said that Lin-gang wants to provide support for the entire green refueling supply chain service system, and lay the foundation for cultivating a hundred billion or even a trillion-level industry in the future.

For global hub ports, international transshipment and splicing business can greatly enhance the port's resource allocation capability, and the international transshipment business of many world-class large ports accounts for more than 50%. In order to make up for this shortcoming, the new area has established the Yangshan International Transshipment and Splicing Public Service Center, actively carrying out multi-format operations such as export splicing, international transshipment disassembly and splicing, and other formats. A series of trade liberalization and facilitation policies and the introduction of intelligent supervision have successfully attracted the shipping giant Maersk to set up an international transshipment and splicing center in Lin-gang. The latest data show that in the first half of this year, the proportion of international transshipment and splicing business volume of Yangshan Port has risen to nearly 19%.