China-Vietnam Pingxiang-Dong Dang Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone: A Fortune Circle in Borderland

written by Li Min / translated by Ma Jinyu

China-Vietnam Pingxiang-Dong Dang Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone: A Fortune Circle in Borderland

written by Li Min / translated by Ma Jinyu

It is the most convenient land access between China and ASEAN countries and a major international trade port in Nanning-Singapore Economic Corridor. It is the gateway for China’s border opening-up as well as the crucial portal in Southwest China. The city we talked about is Pingxiang. Its neighbor -- Dong Dang, a big border trade city in Vietnam, meets with Nanning-Youyiguan (Friendship Pass) Expressway and Hunan-Guilin Railway. Apart from the road infrastructure between China and Vietnam, a great“fortune circle” will be forged as the pace of China’s border opening-up quickens.

The “fortune circle” refers to China-Vietnam Pingxiang-Dong Dang Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone. By utilizing its geographical advantage and taking trade and investment liberation, personnel exchange facilitation and infrastructure connectivity as its goals, the Zone centralized production factors including personnel, logistics, capital and technology and boosted the rapid development in cross-border region, thus to promote the prosperity of surrounding areas via radiation effects. The Zone serves as the new form of China’s border opening-up as well as the new model of city cooperation.

Suit Measures to Local Conditions and Develop Itself with Innovation

The orange growing in Huainan is called tangerine while growing in Huaibei is called trifoliate orange. The economy should be developed in light of local conditions. Pingxiang (Guangxi, China) and Dong Dang (Lang Son, Vietnam) are neighbors separated by Friendship Pass and enjoy natural conditions for cooperation. According to Mr. Su Yong, Deputy Party Secretary of Pingxiang and Director of the Administration Committee of Pingxiang National Key Development and Opening-up Experimental Zone, the total volume of import and export of Pingxiang enterprises amounted to US$ 8.687 billion. Its 10 indicators, including total import and export in small-scale border trade and its import and export to Vietnam, rank first in Guangxi. China-Vietnam relations have entered a great period of development. Facing with favorable environment, China-Vietnam Pingxiang-Dong Dang Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zone will be the seed of hope to the future cooperation and development between China and Vietnam.

Proposed in 2005, the Zone has completed the feasibility research and passed the appraisal by therepresentatives and expert teams of two sides. In October 2013, during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Vietnam, China’s Ministry of Commerce and Vietnam’s Deputy Ministry of Industry and Trade vowed to implement a memorandum of understanding to build a cross-border economic cooperation zone, marking the officially launching of China-Vietnam crossborder economic cooperation zone. Several new consensuses on the Zone have been reached between leaders of China and Vietnam ever since 2014. A nine-storied tower rises from a heap of earth. Currently, the Zone has been accelerating the construction of infrastructure and the improvement of supporting services.

As Su Yong introduced, with 840 million yuan being invested, Pingxiang Border Trade Logistics Center was added to the annex of “Dry Ports of International” identified by Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The main part of Pingxiang Fruit Irradiation Quarantine Processing Center is completed, making it the demonstration project in China to first conduct the electronic irradiation and quarantine as well as high-tech fruit preservation. The earthworks of Pingxiang Border Trade Goods Supervision Center are finished and projects like complex building for joint inspection and customs platform for supervision and inspection are almost completed. The advanced H986 inspection system is brought in and installed, which will realize allelectric supervision of import and export, become the surveillance area with the most advanced equipment as well as the demonstration zone for port inspection. It is expected to officially put it into operation in October 2015. By that time, the purse seine in the Zone will form a regulation model of “first-line opening-up, second-line regulation and line-division management outside the customs and within the boundary”.

To improve the level of customs clearance facilitation and make clearance time more feasible and abundant, China and Vietnam agreed to extend extra one hour for passenger customs clearance and extra one and a half hours for cargoes clearance since July 1, 2015. Vietnam Business Times reported on August 21, 2015 that a transit point for goods would be built in Dong Dang, Lang Son Province, Vietnam so as to alleviate the congestion of Vietnam’s export to China in agricultural products. The construction plan has been approved, which will cover an area of 143 hectares.

The extension of time for clearance and the improvement of port infrastructure offered enterprises, passengers and border inhabitants with abundant time and better environment, lowered the cost of customs clearance and laid a good foundation for the connectivity within the Zone.

Plan First and Act Actively

Some people claimed that Shenzhen is the best paragon for China’s coastal opening-up while Pingxiang the role model for border opening-up and development. The statement makes sense. After 30 years of opening-up in coastal areas, China’s new impetus of economic development is moving from the coastland to the borderland. As an innovative form of opening-up and development, cross-border economic cooperation zone is something new without uniform policies, which requires local government to adjust measures to local conditions, innovate ideas and methods, be active with pioneer spirit, thus to utilize its driving effect on crossborder economic zone and fulfill the dream of win-win cooperation between countries and between cities.

As for the advance of the construction of the Zone, Mr. Su Yong denoted, Pingxiang will act actively, strive for superior support and strengthen communication with Vietnam. First of all, Pingxiang will accelerate to formulate the master plan and industrial plan for the Zone’s development. Second, it will vigorously promote the development of port economy. Third, it will speed up to implement the projects of connectivity port infrastructure, prepare for the train commissioning of "bringing ASEAN fruits to Beijing" and realize the combined transport between road and railway, etc. Fourth, it will actively promote the reform of customs clearance facilitation, improve customs clearance efficiency, speed up the implementation of the "three ones" inspection cooperation in port customs clearance. Fifth, it will further promote the development of cross-border cooperation in labor service, co-build friendly villages and townships as its carrier, play a leading role in cross-border labor service cooperation and enhance the goodneighborly and friendly relations between border inhabitants of China and Vietnam.

The vast sky allows the birds to fly and the wide stretch of land allows the horses to gallop. The proposal of jointly building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the upgrading of the CAFTA as well as the strengthening pace of China’s border opening-up and development will bring the Zone hard-won opportunities. A “fortune circle” with connectivity and common prosperity is taking shape, which will benefit both people and commodities of the two sides.