Guangdong's Nansha FTZ To Enhance Cooperation With Silk Road Nations

By Niam Seet Wei NANSHA (China), May 5 (Bernama) -- The newly established Nansha Free Trade Port Zone, part of South China's Guangdong Free Trade Zone, will be a platform to enhance cooperation in the transformation and upgrading of the processing trade with countries along the Maritime Silk Road, including Malaysia. Business cooperation such as in cross-border renminbi (RMB, China's currency) settlement services as well as developing internet finance would be promoted at the port, said Zhang Benhua, deputy general-director of Guangzhou's Administration Committee of Nansha Development Zone. Other forms of cooperation could include co-design of products, joint formulation of testing standards and joint mapping out of standards for docking technology, said Zhang, who is also the deputy general-director of the Administration Committee of Guangzhou Nansha Free Trade Port Zone (FTZ). "Currently, the port administration is in discussions with three Malaysian companies on mapping out the standards for docking technology. "We are still conducting an initial study," he told journalists here recently. Zhang said Nansha Port would combine its own speciality and the existing industrial base to promote a new business innovation system for the FTZ. "Nansha Port will work in cooperation with the FTZs in Shanghai, Tianjin, and Fujian," he added. Currently, China has four FTZs nationwide. The first FTZ in Shanghai was launched in September 2013 while the other three FTZs -- the northern port of Tianjin, the southern province of Guangdong and the southeast province of Fujian -- were launched on April 21. The 116.2 sq. km Guangdong zone will have three bases in the cities of Guangzhou Nansha New Area, Shenzhen Qianhai Development Zone and Zhuhai Hengqin New Area. Shipping, logistics, finance, international trade and high-end manufacturing are among the major industries that will be handled by Nansha Port, the only deep-water wharf in the west of Pearl River Delta, one of China's leading economic regions and a major manufacturing centre. With a 10.4 km-long coastline, the port can handle 170 million tonnes of cargo and nine million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers annually. --BERNAMA