▲ Jiangbei Airport Xiyong Airlines Front Cargo Station. Map provided by interviewed units

On March 17, in the Xiyong Comprehensive Insurance Zone, a batch of notebook computers with a value of more than 13 million yuan completed security inspection and customs clearance at the Xiyong Airlines Front Cargo Station at Jiangbei Airport, and flew directly to Adumutu and Amsterdam.

This is the first comprehensive aviation forward cargo terminal in the west. It has "moved" the airport functions into the park, so that companies no longer have to travel back and forth. The customs clearance time for goods has increased by 20%, and logistics costs have dropped by more than 20%. nbsp;

A small scene change reflects the tenacity of the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone in adhering to reform and innovation.

On April 1, 2017, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially listed. Over the past nine years, the pilot zone has shouldered the mission of "testing the system for the country and seeking development for the local areas", breaking the rules, gathering momentum in industries, and improving quality in opening up. With an area of only 1.46 ‰ of the city, it has handed over a high score of more than 60% of the total foreign trade volume and nearly 40% of the actual use of foreign investment.

1. Aiming at institutional opening up and turning "impossible" into "possible"

▲ China (Chongqing) Pilot Free Trade Zone (Photo by Li Qian)

For a long time, slow cross-border settlement and high costs have been common pain points for foreign trade companies.

In 2025, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone will open a cross-border two-way settlement channel for China-Singapore digital RMB, and Chongqing Runtong Technology will complete the first cross-border remittance of digital RMB.

"Traditional settlement takes three days and there are handling fees; digital RMB arrives in seconds, and handling fees are temporarily waived, saving hundreds of thousands of yuan a year." More importantly, company leaders said, this innovation reduces companies 'reliance on a single international payment system and makes cross-border funds safer and more efficient.

Financial breakthroughs are just a microcosm. From the beginning, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone has targeted institutional opening up, turning every "impossible" into "possible".

For example, in the past, the import procedures for medicines and foods with the same origin were cumbersome, and customs clearance took 15 days. In July 2025, Chongqing expanded the scope of the pilot list, and Shapingba District took advantage of the trend to launch a facilitation reform. Non-pharmaceutical companies do not need to apply for the "Import Drug Customs Clearance Form". Customs clearance can be completed in 30 minutes at the earliest, saving thousands of yuan in logistics costs for a single container. nbsp;

Faced with the emerging issue of data outbound, in September 2025, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone took the lead in issuing a negative list for data outbound in the central and western regions, covering the entire business chain of intelligent connected vehicles and clearing institutional obstacles for building a world-class industrial cluster.

Nine years of deep cultivation have yielded fruitful results. The Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone has formed a total of 187 institutional innovation results, of which 9 were replicated and promoted nationwide and 157 were shared throughout the city. Last year alone, 21 new municipal promotion results and 2 national-level innovations were added.

2. Gather chains and become the main front of Chongqing's open economy

▲ Guoyuan Port Container Terminal. (Photo by Wang Jiaxi)

In March 2025, the country's first bonded remanufacturing business will be implemented in the Guoyuan Port Comprehensive Guaranteed Zone, and 1080 automobile gearbox control modules will be subject to bonded supervision and warehousing. The birth of this new green business format marks that the industrial opening up of the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone has reached a new level at a higher level.

Manufacturing is the foundation of Chongqing, and the pilot free trade zone is the "accelerator" for industries to go out to sea.

Focusing on intelligent networked new energy vehicles, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone has successively launched a combination of reforms-optimizing the cleaner production review model to reduce the burden on enterprises; innovating the supervision of "sub-container shipping", so that lithium battery exports do not need to "travel back and forth", saving more than 4 million yuan in one year.

Policies work hard and industries explode. In 2025, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone exported 135,000 new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 136.8%; Chang 'an Automobile's overseas sales exceeded 530,000 units, ranking among the top ten brands in many countries; the export of KD parts of automobiles was 80,300 units, with an amount of 6.04 billion yuan, doubling year-on-year.

Not only automobiles, but multiple industrial chains are blooming simultaneously.

The brain of the high-end motorcycle industry has been put into use, and hundreds of companies have collaborated to increase R & D efficiency by 15%. In 2025, the total export volume will reach 26.47 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 30%. The "white list" of biomedicine has been expanded, 71 R & D projects have enjoyed customs clearance convenience, new drug approval has been shortened by three months, and companies such as Yaoyou Pharmaceutical have successfully won large international orders. nbsp;

Industries gather and enterprises come in droves. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, more than 80,000 new market entities were added in the Pilot Free Trade Zone; last year, more than 23,000 new companies were added, a year-on-year increase of 22.76%. Major projects such as Lenovo, Inspur, and BOE have been implemented. Aters and Jardine Matheson Group have continued to increase capital. The headquarters of 16 financial institutions and 17 foreign banking institutions have gathered here, ranking first in the western region in number.

In 2025, the Pilot Free Trade Zone will achieve foreign trade imports and exports of 475.236 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 60% of the city. The actual use of foreign capital will account for 39.1%, and foreign investment will surge by 145.5% year-on-year, becoming the main front of Chongqing's open economy.

3. Entering a new journey and creating an inland opening leading area

▲ Real map of Digital Innovation Park (provided by Liangjiang New Area)

Zhang Yongwu, director of the Municipal Commerce Commission and director of the Free Trade Office, said that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone will aim at the goal of building a leading area in inland open highlands, and promote inland opening with a higher level of institutional opening. The door is opening wider and wider.

In the next step, Chongqing will continue to deepen land trade rules, promote the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Documents of Goods, expand the "one-order system" of multimodal transport to international trains such as China, Laos, China and Vietnam, and strive to exceed the number of bills of lading issued. 20,000, deepen cooperation with countries co-building the "Belt and Road" to make land trade smoother and smarter.

Against international high-standard rules such as CPTPP and DEPA, Chongqing will carry out stress tests in the fields of trade in goods, trade in services, and intellectual property rights, expand the opening up of the service industry, introduce more international arbitration and legal service institutions, and build a first-class international business environment.

In terms of industry, we will focus on intelligent networking of new energy vehicles, improve bonded remanufacturing models, build automobile data trading zones, and move towards high-end, intelligent and green; expand integrated circuits and biomedicine, and strengthen "bonded + R & D" and "bonded + testing" and cultivate more world-class industrial clusters.

At the same time, we will accelerate the construction of the digital free trade zone, improve the management of data outbound lists, build a one-stop service platform, promote data asset financing on the balance sheet, optimize the "single window" for international trade, and use digitalization to empower openness.

In terms of regional coordination, we will deepen the coordinated opening up of the Sichuan-Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone, promote innovative achievements such as the "One KEY Link" between China and China, jointly build the Western Computing Power Hub and the International Data Portal; and link up the Yangtze River Economic Belt Pilot Free Trade Zone to achieve "Hong Kong Confirmation" Full coverage will allow the reform dividends to radiate more widely.

Nine years of experimentation have led to sonorous steps; facing the future, the journey is broad. The Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone is writing a new chapter of higher-level opening up in the western inland with institutional innovation as the pen and industrial opening up as the ink.

Source: Chongqing Commerce Commission

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