Covering just one percent of Tianjin’s whole area, Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone produces one tenth of the port municipality’s GDP and last year accounted for one third of its foreign trade import and export volume

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, the first of its kind to be approved by the central government in North China.

As a result of its favorable policies and the pilot measures it has implemented, it boasts a litany of big market players and high revenue figures. The numbers speak for themselves.

In the five years, the pilot zone saw 69,000 registrations of market entities - three times the figure from before the zone's existence - with registered capital of up to 2.33 trillion yuan ($338.78 billion). These businesses create more than 25 percent of the city’s tax revenue, with a cumulative total of 163.5 billion yuan.

Applications by foreign-invested projects can be done in one day and more areas are being opened to foreign market players to compete with domestic ones on the same platforms. By the end of February this year, the zone registered 2,707 foreign-funded enterprises, and the actual use of foreign capital reached $10 billion, accounting for about one quarter of the whole city.

Its popularity is in part thanks to the coastal city's advantageous location as the sea gate of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and more extensive inland areas in northern China, meeting point of the Belt and Road, and an important stop on the New Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor.

Dongjiang Port in the Tianjin Free Trade Zone

The favorable geography and policies have boosted the three key parts of the zone - Binhai CBD Area, Dongjiang Port Zone, and Tianjin Airport Zone - and led to advancement in fields such as international trade, financial leasing, high-end manufacturing and financial innovation.

Over the past five years, the zone's imports and exports volume reached 1102.92 billion yuan, one third of that of the whole port city.

Tianjin Port Dongjiang Area, the world's second largest airplane leasing market behind that of Ireland, is also expanding rapidly in the fields of medical equipment, rail transportation and electrical equipment.

As of the end of March 2020, Tianjin was home to 3,400 leasing companies with a cumulative registered capital of about 450 billion yuan. The city's aircraft and ship leasing businesses accounted for more than 80 percent of those in the country.

 Binhai CBD area  in the Tianjin Free Trade Zone

The Binhai CBD area’s priority is financial innovation. It has gathered 710 factoring companies with a total business worth over 100 billion yuan, accounting for 15 percent of the country's total.

The area has further simplified government services by implementing 'single window' services, which enable companies to get approval for creating, changing, and cancelling the name of a market entity at one stop. In addition, 49 international trade permissions including customs, inspection, quarantine, and foreign exchange can be handled at the designated window.

Tianjin Port Area is the country’s largest distribution center and sales market for 'parallel' imported cars, with an annual peak import volume of more than 80,000 units, accounting for more than 50 percent of the country. At the same time, it has also maintained the largest sales of parallel imported cars in the country for five consecutive years.

Continuing with its reforms and unleashing more vitality through leading technology, it envisions an even more promising future.

The coastal metropolis has announced its aim to build a world-class smart port by 2035, with container throughput exceeding 30 million TEUs, nearly double that of 2018, and to rank among the top 20 international shipping centers, compared to its 30th place in 2018.

The zone's continuous efforts in terms of reform and opening-up have yielded 430 institutional innovations and more than 230 successful cases of reform, with many reproducible experiences that can be shared with other cities and regions for reference.