State Council, General Plan for the China (Heilongjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone

Issued: August 2, 2019

Main contents: The Heilongjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone will construct a transport and logistics hub oriented toward Russia and northeast Asia. It will further expand the scope of cross-border transport goods for internal trade and the scope of entry ports. It supports the establishment of inland dry ports in the Harbin Area. Depending on transport needs and the state of construction of railways outside China, it will start expansion of the capacity and improvement of the Suihua to Heihe railway at the appropriate time and promote expansion of the capacity and improvement of the railway between Suifenhe and Grodekovo, Russia. It will accelerate promotion of the development of the Harbin international air transport hub and, in freedoms of the air negotiations with foreign parties, endeavor on the basis of equality and mutual benefit to secure the international freedoms of the air, including the fifth freedom, required for the development of the Harbin air transport hub. It supports the establishment of a railway handling station for hazardous chemicals in the Suifenhe Area (Article 11).

The Pilot Free Trade Zone will establish a state reserve base for imported energy and resources. It supports the import of potash fertilizers from neighboring countries by enterprises in the Zone to satisfy the province's agricultural development needs. It also supports the establishment of an operating entity with an independent legal person status to procure electricity from Russia and expand the scope of the use of Russian power to the Heihe Area. The Zone also supports enterprises in the Zone "going global" to engage in foreign agricultural cooperation. It will establish foreign agricultural cooperation parks and encourage enterprises to engage in the trading and processing of the products derived from overseas investment cooperation and brought back to China. It will accelerate promotion of the access procedure for forage from Russia and support the establishment of import designated supervised operational yards for seeds, fingerlings and frozen and fresh aquatic products at frontline ports. The Zone will establish a transfer payment growth mechanism for border regions coupled with comprehensive factors such as trade amount, freight volume, and encouraged category and restricted category products. It will accelerate the development of the economy of the Heihe Heilongjiang Bridge bridgehead region and consider the new "two countries, two parks" cooperation model. It will also accelerate development of the Heihe cold region international vehicle research, development and testing base (Article 12).