The customs departments of Zhanjiang, Haikou and Nanning will join hands to innovate the regulatory mechanism to promote the Beibu Gulf region’s foreign trade development.

Senior customs officials and executives of major port enterprises from the three cities gathered in Haikou yesterday to discuss further economic cooperation and integration to build the Beibu Gulf region into an important portal facing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) along the “21st Maritime Silk Road”.

The customs departments reached an agreement in the meeting to implement four innovative regulatory models to improve logistics efficiency and lower costs for enterprises.

A “new” route connecting all ports in the Beibu Gulf region will be opened to enable transporting domestic and foreign trade goods on the same ship, a move to increase the utilization benefits of the port transportation resources.

When the “new” route is open, ships will be able to embark cargo from ports along the route in the region after leaving from the port of departure .

In addition, the existing routes of the ports in the Beibu Gulf will be linked up, so that ships could depart from any port in the region.

The ships will also be allowed to discharge import goods and upload export goods in the same port, rather than the previously required two ports.

Zhanjiang, Haikou and Nanning form a key triangle with the southwestern China on the back and Southeast Asia face to face. The customs departments and port enterprises of the three cities signed a memorandum last November, agreeing on supporting the interconnection and interworking among the Beibu Gulf ports.

According to statistics from Zhanjiang Customs, the three customs districts reached a total export and import volume of 56.11 billion yuan ($9.05 billion) to the countries along the new “Silk Road” from January to February, up 11.5 percent from last year, accounting for 61 percent of the three cities’ total foreign trade volume. ASEAN is the region’s major partner, with foreign trade volume between the two sides standing at 36.97 billion yuan ($5.96 billion) in the same period.