Policy steps to further improve trade relations with Southeast Asian countries

The General Administration of Customs unveiled 15 policy measures on Tuesday to stimulate growth in the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, aiming to reduce transportation costs for importers and exporters while promoting the development of inland business hubs.

With its operational hub based in Chongqing in Southwest China, this trade corridor connects global ports via railways, sea routes and highways through Chinese provincial-level regions such as South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Southwest China's Yunnan province. It is one of the key projects under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The GAC will support the imports of bulk commodities through the new trade corridor. This initiative will contribute to building the country's strategic hinterland and assist key logistics hubs along the corridor in implementing rail-sea intermodal transportation options. It will also help facilitate international rail container imports of mineral products as well as pilot programs for fruit inspection and quarantine at destinations.

Chen Zongwang, deputy director of the GAC's department of general operation, said the administration will expand the domestic segment freight tax reduction policy for rail-sea intermodal transportation along the corridor to include China-Laos and China-Vietnam freight train services, ensuring that imported goods get the same tax rate benefit in inland provinces as those cleared at sea and land ports.

In addition to helping inland provinces explore innovative trade models, the new policy measures will facilitate the strategic transfer of industries from eastern to western regions.

The measures will foster mechanisms to connect open platforms in these areas and guide the relocation of upstream and downstream industries, advancing the planning, industrial synergy and complementary growth of comprehensive bonded zones along the corridor, Chen said.

From January to October, the total value of foreign trade in goods via the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor reached 1.15 trillion yuan ($159 billion), a year-on-year increase of 8.8 percent, customs data showed.

Zhang Xiaodong, a professor specializing in transportation management at Beijing Jiaotong University, said that by leveraging the advantages of a swift trade corridor, agricultural and industrial products of western China - such as the Ningxia Hui autonomous region's red wine, electronic products manufactured in Sichuan province and tea cultivated in Guizhou province - have all emerged as new growth engines for foreign trade in the western region.

The new trade corridor currently links over 120 countries and regions, as well as 542 ports, and more than 30,000 train trips have been completed to date. It has expanded its scope of goods from 80 to 1,160 categories, ranging from food and beverages to machinery and vehicles.

Together with the new supportive policies, the corridor will continue to elevate the western region to a vantage point of openness, and tighten trade ties between China and Southeast Asian countries, Zhang said.

Chongqing D-Chamwin Motor Technology Co, a motorcycle manufacturer, ships spare parts through the corridor's cross-border highway express service, allowing these to reach its factory in Mandalay, Myanmar, within five days. The parts are then assembled into motorcycles for local consumers.

Motorcycles have a strong market in Southeast Asia but, traditionally, exporting to countries in that region required the lengthy river-sea intermodal transportation route, which often took a month or more, said Yang Heping, the company's general manager, underscoring the advantages of the trade corridor.