Urumqi bonded zone to help boost imports from Pakistan

BEIJING: A “Pakistan National Pavilion” to be set up in Urumqi comprehensive bonded zone (UCBZ), and Urumqi integrated pilot zone to display Pakistani products aimed at boosting imports from Pakistan, China Economic Net (CEN) reported it on Thursday.

Ma Xiaoyan, Chairman of UNI International Business said that Urumqi, capital city of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is Belt and Road Initiative’s core location, where Made-in-Pakistan items would attract Chinese and international consumers, added that the Pavilion opening ceremony is expected to be held in April 2021.

“We are working in Pakistan for the last 15 years and providing local value-added service on consulting and trading with Chinese companies and local Pakistani enterprises in the sector of agricultural, power transmission, power generation, industrial projects, mine and mineral projects, and CPEC infrastructure projects,” he told CEN.

He further said that the implementation of the 2nd phase of China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) has allowed Pakistani products on zero duty to the Chinese market, and the pavilion facility would offer Pakistani traders an opportunity to market their products here.

“In 2019, we purposely imported more than 10 tons of Pakistan fresh mangoes and did sales promotion in different Chinese cities like Urumqi, Guangzhou and Chengdu, where we received a perfect response,” Ma added. He stated that Pakistan has huge agriculture-related and food-related processing investment opportunities to make value addition, then export finishing products to China under FTA and Gulf countries by gaining foreign exchange and creating employment opportunities in Pakistan.

“In China in 2021, we have a plan to show Naya Pakistan, Emerging Pakistan and True Pakistan to the Chinese and international public by using Pakistan National Pavilion platform.

The pavilion area is about 80? and the two offices are about 150?,” he mentioned.

Ma told CEN that on July 20, 2015, China State Council approved Urumqi Comprehensive Bonded Zone to be established. On June 22, 2018, Urumqi Comprehensive Bonded Zone was put into commercial operation status, added that Pakistan Pavilion takes the best places among all pavilions.

It is to be noted that Urumqi integrated pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce approved by State Council in April 2020.

And it was commercially operated in May 2020, one year of cross-border e-commerce exports from Xinjiang ranked fourth busiest in the mainland, and 50 million e-commerce packages destined for Europe worth RMB 1.17 billion.