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SINGAPORE—China’s
State Council has approved to set the nation’s fourth
free-trade port in Yangpu Economic Development Zone, in
Hainan province, according to Xinhua News.
The
fourth free-trade port, following
Shanghai,
Tianjin and Dalian, will be the first in South China.
Total fixed asset investments amount to renminbi (RMB)
50 billion in the 9.21-square-kilometer Yangpu Free
Trade Port. It is expected to produce an annual
industrial output of RMB 10 billion and a capacity of 70
million ton freight annually.
The
Yangpu Economic Development Zone, covering an area of 30
square kilometers, is located in
Yangpu Peninsula, in
the main ship course connecting Southeast Asia and
Northwest Asia. It is the nation’s nearest deepwater
port to Malacca.
Due to
its geographic advantage,
Hainan will be building a commercial storage base for petroleum,
which could reserve at least 10 million cubic meters of
petroleum.
Yangpu
is also relatively near to the Hainan Gas Resources
Development District. It has constructed an
8-million-ton oil refinery and embarked on a 100,000 ton
styrene project. The 600,000 ton PX project and 1-
million-ton ethane project, listed in the 11th five-year
plan (2006-2010), are scheduled to commence on its
construction.
Jiang
Sixian, vice governor of Hainan, said that the port will
be built into a logistics center for oil, natural gas,
chemical materials and paper pulp and act as a key
processing base for chemical products in China.
In a
separate report datelined
Beijing,
the Yangpu Bonded Port Area, as the zone is called, will
receive preferential treatment including tax breaks to
help it become a major export base for petrochemicals,
the newspaper said, citing Li Lanxue, Customs chief in
Hainan’s provincial city
Haikou.
The
zone, when completed, will have an annual throughput
capacity of 70 million tons, a Chinese newspaper
reported. Construction, planned in three phases, will
finish in 2012.
---Bloomberg |
