Tianjin port expands to accommodate 30 percent year-on-year growth

July 25, 2007 Posted by China Briefing Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Tianjin Bonded Zone is seeing a lot of construction these days as the port is dredged and streets leading to the zone are dug up to lay cables and pipelines for telephone, electric and gas facilities to feed the new logistic parks under construction.

By the end of 2007, according to an article in Cargonews Asia, the first batch of six container berths with a draught of 18 meters will be completed at Tianjin’s Dongjiang port. The sixth berths, run by a joint venture of Tianjin Port and PSA of Singapore and costing US$871.5 million, will have a capacity of four million TEUs a year.

The article goes on to say that the current bonded port and zone will become the Dongjiang Free Port and the Tianjin Free Trade Zone, according to a blueprint drawn up by the Tianjin municipal authority.

The current Tianjin registered an annual growth of 30 percent since it began operation in 1991, making it the top bonded zone in the country for four years in a row in terms of foreign investment as well as input of fixed assets. The zone’s GDP grew 34.7 percent in the first five months of this year with imports and exports rising nearly 30 percent to US$12.2 billion.

The Tianjin Free Trade Zone offers a lot of incentives to customers according to the Cargonews Asia report.

First, storage of incoming goods is exempt from Customs duties, value-added tax and consumption tax. Imports will no longer come under the quotas and license administration and there will be no limit set on the time for storage of goods and they can also be moved freely between the free zone and foreign countries.

Second, if processing enterprises use machinery, equipment, capital construction items or office appliances made in foreign countries or when they need raw materials and installation kits for processing of export products, all these items will be exempt from Customs duties, value-added tax and consumption tax and will not be subject to quotas and license administration.

Third, enterprises operating in the zone, whether home-funded or foreign-funded, can open a spot exchange account. The foreign exchange earnings of an enterprise can be settled at the discretion of the enterprise and the trade transactions between the zone and foreign countries are not required to go through the cash accounting and settlement procedures.

Fourth, the enterprises processing export products are free from cash deposits and do not require a processing manual. Sales of products within the zone will be exempt from the imposition of value-added tax in the production process. Domestic sales of products manufactured partly with foreign materials are subject only to Customs duties and value-added tax on the portion comprised of foreign materials.