u=2657098,789861635&fm=21&gp=0.jpg (Photo : baidu.com)
China has approved the establishment of 12 new free trade zones coming right in the heels of a Shanghai free trade zone approved last September.
A trusted source told the Economic Information Daily on Wednesday that two of the planned FTZs will be located in Tianjin Municipality and Guangdong Province, but did not divulge information on the 10 other locations.
The source added that after the cabinet grants its approval, designated departments of the central government will jointly survey the proposed areas and come out with detailed plans regarding the establishment of the zones.
The entire procedure, according to the source, may take more than a year. Surveys had already been conducted and completed in the proposed zones in Tianjin and Guangdong while surveys have just commenced in the 10 other areas, the source said.
There is a surge of interest in FTZs nationwide. Provinces like Zhejiang, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shandong, Liaoning, Henan, Guangxi, Fujian and urban areas like Hefei, Suzhou and Wuxi have all declared that filing applications for setting up FTZs in their areas is one of their prime targets for 2014.
China has not set a ceiling as to how many FTZs they would allow to be set up. Neither does it have a time frame for their establishment. Compliance with requirements is their prime concern, the source added.
Huo Jianguo, head of one of the research institutes working with the China Ministry of Commerce said that new FTZs can be a big boost to the further development of China's economy and observing and monitoring them could pave the way to the improvement of China's policies on FTZs.
