(Yicai Global) May 12 -- China’s customs administration and seven ministries and government commissions have inspected and approved the first phase of Shanghai’s Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone, which will be the most convenient and freely managed of the country’s 151 special customs areas, The Paper reported.

Yangshan will allow inbound and outbound cargo without registration, while entry-exit filings are needed in China’s other bonded zones, and will carry out quarantine checks in the zone itself whereas the others do them at port.

Yangshan also uses innovative regulatory policies such as not setting customs account books and allowing free circulation of goods rather than a customs account book management system and compulsory declaration of intra-zone goods circulation in other bonded zones.

Located on the shores of the East Sea to the south of Shanghai, the Yangshan zone was approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet, in January. With a planned area of 25.31 square kilometers, the first phase covers 14.27 square kilometers.

The first phase comprises 6.36 square kilometers of land and 7.91 square kilometers of Xiaoyangshan Island, where Shanghai Yangshan Port is located, according to Wu Wei, deputy director of the Management Committee for the Shanghai Free Trade Zone’s Lingang New Area. The two areas are linked by Donghai Bridge, and separated from the outside of the bonded zone by a 32 to 87-kilometer wall. The area achieves zone-port integration and fully enclosed management, Wu added.

According to a plan issued earlier by the Chinese government, the Yangshan zone administers more relaxed and convenient policies. Its goal is to become a global demonstration area of international investment, trade, service liberalization and facilitation, and integration practices by removing unnecessary trade supervision, permits and procedural requirements.

Editor: Peter Thomas