A China-Europe freight train carrying medical supplies bound for Madrid of Spain departs from the city of Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, June 5, 2020. (Photo by Lyu Bin/Xinhua)
BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone (Zhejiang FTZ) in east China will strive to build itself into a digital, oil and gas, and hub free trade zone during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), reported Zhejiang Daily Tuesday.
In the following five years, Zhejiang FTZ will continue to deepen the construction of the entire oil and gas industry chain, and promote Zhoushan and Ningbo, two areas within the FTZ, to jointly build an international oil and gas trading center, an international oil and gas storage and transportation base, a world-class international petrochemical industry base and an international maritime service base, said an official of the FTZ.
According to the official, the FTZ will also strive to become China's renminbi internationalization demonstration zone for cross-border trade of bulk commodities.
It aims to form an oil product reserve capacity, a refining capacity and an oil and gas trading volume of more than 70 million metric tones (tonnes), 90 million tonnes and 1 trillion yuan, respectively, by 2025.
It will also set up an international agricultural products center and a cold chain distribution system to meet the consumption demand of high-end animal protein such as beef and seafood in the Yangtze River Delta market.
In terms of digital development, Zhejiang FTZ will make full use of digital technologies and means such as 5G, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to achieve integrated and modern digital regulation and services, and create a world-class digital business environment.
It targets to achieve 1.2 trillion yuan of new international trade volume with digital trade as the main body, accounting for more than one third of its international trade, with the added value of the core industries of digital economy contributing to 20 percent of the GDP, and the global layout of Electronic World Trade Platforms (eWTP) reaching 30 by 2025.
In order to build an international shipping and logistics hub, Zhejiang FTZ will make efforts to foster the integrated development of Ningbo Zhoushan port and Yiwu international inland port, with the goals of realizing 35 million TEUs of container throughput and more than 3,000 trips made by the China-Europe freight trains, according to the official.
It will also promote the upgrading and cluster development of key industries like fine chemical, digital economy, life and health, and new materials, with the aim to build five advanced manufacturing industry clusters with international competitiveness, and gather 130-odd Fortune 500 manufacturing companies by 2025.
(Edited by Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, gushanshan.1987@163.com)
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