An exterior view of the Yangshan Free Trade Zone. [Photo/WeChat ID: shlgguanweihui]

The Yangshan Free Trade Zone – administered by the Lin-gang Special Area in East China's Shanghai city – posted a 37.4 percent year-on-year increase in its imports and exports in April, the General Administration of Customs said on May 18.

Moreover, the value of the province's total imports and exports topped 14.86 billion yuan ($2.22 billion) during the period, despite the outbreak of COVID-19 in Shanghai in April.

That growth, which was significantly higher than the national level, is said to be owed in no small part to the development of different forms of business innovation in the Yangshan FTZ.

Since the establishment of the Lin-gang Special Area in Aug 20, 2019, the Yangshan FTZ has built functional platforms and nurtured new development momentums by centering on new business forms. These include bonded maintenance and testing, bonded displays and trading, bonded ship supplies, bonded leasing and cross-border e-commerce.

In line with the rapid growth of the cross-border e-commerce export business, the Yangshan FTZ has taken the lead in Shanghai. That's in terms of realizing 1,210 bonded stock exports in cross-border e-commerce – helping small and medium-sized domestic companies sell their products to all parts of the world through cross-border e-commerce platforms and service providers, such as Newegg and Amazon.

On Dec 30, 2021, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the General Administration of Customs issued a catalogue of added maintenance products in the comprehensive bonded zone.

In response, the Yangshan FTZ is focusing on the development of new formats for bonded maintenance and green remanufacturing – with high technology, high added value and meeting the requirements for environmental protection.

Canadian STG Group, an influential global enterprise in the electronic products maintenance industry, has started up a maintenance production line in the Yangshan FTZ. By the end of the first quarter of this year, it had imported eight batches of 28,430 recycled computers. Furthermore, the bonded maintenance and re-shipment of nearly 10,000 units were completed.

A maintenance production line in the Yangshan FTZ. [Photo/WeChat ID: shlgguanweihui]

In addition, the Yangshan FTZ – with the support of Shanghai Customs, the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration and other interested authorities – has been moving to promote high-level institutional opening-up since 2021.

In March this year, it rolled out a new supervision scheme to meet the requirements of the integrated supervision and operations of the two plants located in and out of the FTZ. 

The Yangshan FTZ is currently said to be the customs special supervision zone with the highest degree of opening up and the biggest number of reforms in China.