Chuanshan Port. [Photo by Tang Yan]
By Dong Na
Ningbo will devolve 102 municipal authorities to the Ningbo Area of Zhejiang Pilot Free Trade Zone next year. Involving 11 departments, this is going to be the largest delegation of municipal authority in the history of Ningbo, which will give the Ningbo Area even greater reform autonomy. With that, how to further enhance the core competitiveness of the free trade zone has become the key proposition of Ningbo in the next step.
Innovative Achievements
Get Recognized
In 2013, Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone was established. At that time, Ningbo, a large open-economy city, a nationally leading manufacturing town, and the world's largest port, was also looking forward to having one. Later on, when the Zhejiang Pilot Free Trade Zone became the first FTZ in the country to expand, three new areas: Hangzhou, Ningbo, Jinhua-Yiwu were listed. Since then, Ningbo has been resolved to seize the expansion dividend.
Over the past year, focusing on the functional positioning, development planning, and enterprise demands of the free trade zone, Ningbo has strengthened the exploration of the pioneering and differentiated system and formed the "3+7+10+20" innovation achievement system.
Among them, Ningbo cases, such as "remote port state control inspections" of arriving foreign ships, "three-in-one" reform of maritime adjudication, and the new mechanism of bulk commodity trading and financing, were successfully selected as the top 30 institutional innovation cases in the province. Ten landmark achievements, including the industrial community integrated management service model, were regarded as "first in China" innovations. A total of 20 reform measures, such as Chinese non-five-star ship coastal piggy-back business, were selected into the top seven batches of ten landmark achievements in the province.
Port, shipping, and trade are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Many measures adopted by the Ningbo Area were brand new in China and have brought real trade convenience to enterprises. For example, through the innovative mechanism of "Remote Port State Control Inspections" for arriving foreign ships, the integration of traffic flow organization is implemented to effectively reduce the cost of waiting for ships and the occupation of dock and anchorage resources. It is estimated that the mechanism, which helped to effectively avoid ship deportment and production schedule changes, had reduced the average waiting time of a single ship by 10%, significantly improving the efficiency of port clearance.
Recently, at the Conference on the High-quality Promotion of the China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the achievements of institutional innovations in the Ningbo Area were again welcomed by the provincial authorities.
Continually Enhancing
Core Competitiveness
Last September, the Planning of China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone Extended Areas was released. According to the Planning, Ningbo will assume the strategic function positioning of "one hub, three centers and one demonstration zone" with a 46 square kilometer test area. Hence, to build an oil and gas resource allocation center is becoming the first of the "three centers".
Oil and gas industries are the biggest feature of Zhejiang Free Trade Zone. From "an oil and gas resource allocation center" to "a whole industry chain of oil and gas", Ningbo area will further improve the openness and better serve the national strategy.
Ningbo proposes to adhere to the synergistic development and misalignment with Zhoushan, accelerate the construction of international oil and gas resource allocation center, strengthen the green petrochemical industry cluster, accelerate the gathering of international oil giants and famous oil service companies, build a powerful digital energy trade platform, significantly increase the storage volume and trading scale of oil and gas and chemicals, strive to become a globally influential oil and gas and chemicals distribution center, pricing center and standard-setting center, and provide more powerful support for national energy security and primary product supply.
At the same time, a number of key foreign investment projects in Ningbo were speeded up. In October, the "Matheson International Energy Trade Headquarters Project" was signed in Ningbo. Matheson Energy (Ningbo) will build the first domestic LPG Internet of Things sales platform in the Ningbo area, and strive to become the world's largest LPG comprehensive operator by 2025 with an annual trade volume exceeding 100 billion yuan and import and export volume exceeding 30 billion yuan.
"We will take this project as an opportunity to rely on our existing industrial foundation and the latest policies of investment and trade liberalization and facilitation in the FTZ to speed up the development of 'industry + trade' and help with the initiative of becoming a new international energy trade center in Ningbo," remarked by the head of the company.
Looking Forward to Higher
Quality Development
At the foot of Fenghuang mountain in Beilun, in where was a parking lot of Harbor Park, a CBD of Free Trade Zone will be built, which will become the key platform for "promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging industries such as headquarters economy, industrial Internet, 5G+ and digital economy" in the Ningbo Area of China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
To pursue higher quality, Ningbo needs to explore new drivers and foster new concepts. Especially in areas that reflect core competencies, the Ningbo Area needs to take the lead in planning.
With a focus on new material science innovation centers and intelligent manufacturing demonstration areas, which will be propelled by digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, the Ningbo Area continues to promote the deep integration of digital technology and real economy, highlighting the development of key materials and equipment.
To build a clustered area of R&D in new functional materials, the Ningbo Area has successively introduced five high-level scientific innovation platforms, such as the Ningbo Research Institute of BUAA, becoming home to more than 30 new material projects. They will help to further improving the level of new material research and development and cultivating advanced manufacturing clusters and characteristic industrial chains of rare earth magnetic materials industry.
We can continue to expect more breakthroughs. The Ningbo Area emphasizes the development of electronic information materials, high-end magnetic materials, and electronic chemical materials. For instance, the Chuanbi Island High-Performance New Chemical Materials Industry Project, with a total investment of 33 billion yuan, was recently finalized and hosted by the Ningbo Area.