On May 12, 1991, with the approval from the State Council, Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone was established in the seaport area of Tianjin Port; on October 15, 2002, the municipal Party committee of Tianjin approved the development and construction of Tianjin Airport Economic Area, so Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone was further expanded. On December 22, 2017, the municipal Party committee of Tianjin decided to merge Tianjin Harbor Economic Area into Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone, starting a new chapter of the innovative development of Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone.
After 29 years of rapid development, a spatial layout of “three areas and two ports” of the Zone has formed, in which the “three areas” refers to the Airport Area, the Harbor Area and the Seaport Area, and the “two ports” refers to Tianjin Port and Tianjin Binhai International Airport. The planned area under the jurisdiction of the Zone is 202.4 square kilometers, including Airport Area of 81.2 square kilometers (including Tianjin Aviation Logistics Area of 7.6 square kilometers), Harbor Area of 115 square kilometers, and Seaport Area of 6.2 square kilometers. The planned port shoreline is 80 kilometers, with a throughput of 300 million tons.
On May 15, 2020, the State Council approved the request of upgrading Tianjin Bonded Logistics Park to Tianjin Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone. So far, Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone has become a special zone with the most favorable policies, the completest functions, the simplest procedures and the highest level of opening-up. As an important platform of the open economy of China and an important pivot of the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the “Belt and Road” initiative, the Zone enjoys the special favorable policies of both Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone and Tianjin Binhai New Area, and have remarkable advantages in opening-up and innovation.
Industrial layout
Generally, the Zone has remarkable advantage of gathering in the secondary industry, and has formed a layout in which the three major industrial clusters, that is civil aviation, high-end equipment manufacturing, and fast moving consumer goods are the main parts and the advanced manufacturing industries such as AI, biomedicine and new energy and materials are developing rapidly. The tertiary industry has a rapid development, with joint development of international trade, modern service, modern logistics, emerging finance, and new generation of IT service. The new economies and new business formats have made outstanding contribution, and the revenue from network based cargo transport, trade platform and Internet service sectors has exceeded RMB 100 million. In 2019, the ratio between the secondary industry and tertiary industry of the Zone was 30.1:69.9; as compared with such ratio in 2018, the proportion of the tertiary industry was 8.6 percentage points higher.
Airport Area: Making special efforts to develop high-end manufacturing and high-end services. A high-end industrial gathering area has formed here, in which civil aviation is taken as the major industry, intelligent industry is taken as the key industry, and advanced manufacturing represented by high-end equipment manufacturing, automobile parts, fast moving consumer goods, and new energy and materials as well as modern services represented by trade and logistics, financial insurance, and scientific and technological services are taken as supporting industries. Taking the functional positioning of “gathering area of aviation industry, leading area of emerging industries, and development core of service economy”, this area quickens the improvement of civil aviation industrial chains, promotes the fostering of emerging industries, makes strong the high-end service industry, forms a high-level, innovative and advanced industrial system, and brings radiation effect to the Harbor Area and the Seaport Area.
Harbor Area: Making special efforts to develop marine equipment manufacturing, general aviation and services. Taking the functional positioning of “industrial cluster of marine economy, development core of advanced manufacturing, and gathering area of general aviation industry in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei”, this area makes great efforts to enhance the utilization of fundamental resources such as shoreline, dock and port, focuses on introduction of human resource, construction of specialized platforms and carriers, and optimization of industrial development environment, brings into full play the characteristics of marine economy, promotes the clustered and high-efficiency development of equipment manufacturing, general aviation, and grain and oil industry, greatly develops port related services such as port logistics and trade, and forms industrial coordination and complementation with the Seaport Area and the Airport Area.
Seaport Area: Bringing into play the functional advantage of bonded area and building a highland of logistics and trade. Taking the functional positioning of “open economic center in Tianjin and highland of international logistics and trade”, this area promotes environment improvement projects and fundamental industry transfer projects, focuses on platform development and smart port construction, drives the development of port services such as international trade and shipment logistics, and quickens to foster and develop new business formats such as cross-border e-commerce.
Aviation Logistics Area: This area actively grasps the significant strategic opportunities such as the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, construction of the pilot free trade zone, and development and opening-up of Binhai New area, has formed a rather complete aviation logistics industrial chain consisting of air transport, mail express, e-commerce, aviation finance, business service, aviation repair, education and training, and comprehensive service, and has continuously enhanced the regional economic development vigor and comprehensive competitiveness.
Business environment
Advantageous location--It is located at the junction of the Maritime Silk Road and the North China Economic Belt, close to the urban district of Tianjin and only 110km away from Beijing. Relying on Tianjin Port and Tianjin Binhai International Airport, it takes the advantages of both sea transportation and air transportation. It has good traffic conditions and is highly accessible to the world.
Free trade -- China (Tianjin) Pilot Free Trade Zone is the first pilot free trade zone in North China. The parts of this pilot free trade zone under the jurisdiction of Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone Administrative Committee include the Airport Area and a part of the Seaport Area. Since its formal establishment, the Pilot Free Trade Zone has made in-depth exploration and brave try in the field of institutional innovation. At the beginning of 2019, the Zone promoted the reform in approval systems, reduced 19 approval matters, and actively accepted 437 matters authorized by the municipal administrations; in June, the Zone released new policies to promote the development of the bonded repair and remanufacturing industry; in November, the FT account system started its operation in Tianjin. The new policies enhanced trade convenience and are significantly favorable for enterprises needing frequent cross-border fund flow.
Efficient services -- The average approval steps of administrative licensing matters are reduced by 25.7%, and 437 matters authorized by the municipal administrations were actively accepted. The nationally innovative simplest information and undertaking based approval procedure was developed, and self-service equipment was installed so that enterprises can handle labor dispatch and other matters by themselves. Procedures of new enterprise establishment may be completed on the site in 3 hours.
Talents gathering -- There are 132 colleges and universities in the Beijing-Tianjin region, of which 55 ones are located in Tianjin, including key universities such as Nankai University, Tianjin University and Hebei University of Technology. More than 100,000 bachelors, masters and doctors graduate here each year, showing the remarkable human resource advantage of Tianjin.
Complete supporting facilities - There are abundant high-quality education resources and medical resources in the Zone. Blue-collar apartments and white-collar apartments have been built to satisfy the diversified residential needs, and there are also complete supporting facilities such as shopping malls and cultural and sports centers, constructed and managed under high standards. A main-branch library system has been built, and the smart city construction is under stable progress. A commercial circle of one million square meters consisting of New Yansha Outlets, European Trade Center, and SM Binhai Urban Plaza has formed.
Green and ecology -- The green forest barrier and green urban corridor between the urban area of Tianjin and Binhai New Area has been basically built, and Lingang Wetland Park has been basically completed, with beautiful scenery. The air quality in the Zone has been kept high for a long period, and the water quality in offshore areas is kept stable.
Development highlights
Comprehensive Bonded Area
On March 10, 2008, the State Council approved the establishment of Binhai New Area Comprehensive Bonded Area, which was located in Tianjin Airport Logistics Processing Area and had a planned area of 195.63 hectares. On May 15, 2020, the State Council approved the request of upgrading Tianjin Bonded Logistics Park, located in the Seaport Area, to Tianjin Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone. As the first bonded ship manufacturing and repair base in China, the largest marine engineering equipment bonded manufacturing center in China, and a national marine engineering bonded development and innovation center, the Harbor Area takes the strategic opportunity of building national marine economy scientific development demonstration area, marine ecological civilization demonstration area and national science and technology driven marine industry development demonstration base, makes efforts to enhance marine economy by science and technology, and attracts many marine engineering equipment enterprises to settle here. So far, promoting the establishment of Lingang Comprehensive Bonded Zone has been listed as one of the “key missions of the municipal government in 2020” by the municipal government of Tianjin.
Coordinated industrial development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei
The Zone has built 13 Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei industrial cooperation and exchange platforms. In 2019, it has accumulatively completed 403 key projects from Beijing and Hebei, with agreed investment of more than RMB 40 billion. Projects such as the second R&D headquarters of Unis Software, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei headquarters of COSCO Shipping, CRCC 12 International Engineering Co., Ltd., and headquarters of Unicom Video have settled here and started operation.
Marine engineering equipment
Relying on leading enterprises, the Zone has improved the industrial chain of marine equipment manufacturing, and formed an industrial cluster. On one hand, it brings into play the driving function of Offshore Oil Engineering, BOMESC and Taizhong, and builds core supplier villages for projects such as Offshore Oil Engineering and BOMESC with reference to the supply chain village mode of Airbus. On the other hand, it takes Xingang Shipyard as the core and builds Tianjin Lingang Ship Building and Repair Base Technology Center to quicken the research and design of high-end ships and special vessels, introduce and foster supporting enterprises, and build a high-end ship equipment manufacturing cluster. In addition, it will, relying on key enterprises such as Offshore Oil Engineering, CNOOC Service and BOMESC, carry out general assembly and commissioning of FPSO module and its connections to hull so as to enhance the overall FPSO delivery ability.
Hydrogen energy
The Zone comprehensively supports the development of hydrogen energy industry from seven aspects, respectively project introduction, infrastructure construction and operation, publicity of demonstration applications, encouraging innovation and R&D, setting industrial fund, building industrial atmosphere, and organizing industrial alliance, and makes efforts to build a pioneer area and gathering area of hydrogen energy industry of Tianjin. It is expected that, by 2022, one general hydrogen station and six hydrogen sub-stations will be built, 800 or more hydrogen battery vehicles will be used, and Tianjin Hydrogen Energy Industry Demonstration Park consisting of the five areas of resource production, intelligent manufacturing, innovation and R&D, demonstration and exhibition, and comprehensive supporting will be preliminarily built and become a top-grade park of hydrogen energy industry in China.
Artificial intelligence
Enterprises in the artificial intelligence industry in the Zone include those at the application level (intelligent application), the technical level (intelligent software service), and the fundamental level (intelligent infrastructure). The Zone closely follows the leading edge of this industry to enhance the industrial quality, and creates the “strategic depth” of the regional development by virtue of new technologies. The “AI industry demonstration base” jointly built by iFLY TEK and the Zone, called Tianjin Zhihuigu, has become a R&D center of iFLY TEK in North China, and has introduced 168 enterprises and attracted and served about 17,000 AI developers. Lenovo Headquarters Tianjin Park, which has settled in the Zone, will have more than 1,000 employees and an income of more than RMB 10 billion.
Biomedicine
Application of new and high technologies and modern synthesis technologies such as gene engineering, cell engineering, enzyme engineering, biochemical engineering and biomedicine is deepened, marine biomedicine development platform with local characteristics is built, and functional marine biological products such as biomedical materials, functional food, green agricultural products, enzyme preparations, and cosmetics are developed with great efforts.
China-Europe Industrial Park
The Zone makes efforts to promote the comprehensive and in-depth cooperation between China and EU in industrial development, scientific and technological innovation, standard system, development and investment, and enterprise management, to build itself to a new engine of industrial transformation and upgrading, new driving force of open economy and new platform of regional cooperation, and to achieve win-win cooperation between China and EU.
Leisure shoreline
It is planned to build an urban leisure bay in Binhai New Area, which will have the features of seascape viewing, leisure, cultural show, and seaside amusement, and be built to an all-season leisure seashore in Beijing-Tianjin-Xiongan circle, a destination of seaside leisure, vacation and recuperation in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, and a “living room” of Tianjin as a coastal city.
Source: www.tjftz.gov.cn
Updated on: Wednesday , February21st, 2024