The Cross-Straits Agricultural Products Wholesale Trading Center project jointly developed by Beijing Xinfadi-a leading wholesaler of farm produce in China and even in Asia and Pingtan-the closest place on the Chinese mainland to the island of Taiwan is proceeding in an orderly manner in Pingtan.

Based on Pingtan’s facilitated cross-Straits logistics and roles as a window for China’s opening up to the outside world, both parties aim to build a fast lane for trading bulk farm products from Taiwan and Southeast Asia. By way of Pingtan, as a distribution center, premium farm products from Taiwan and Southeast Asia will be sold to the mainland and vice versa.

“Pingtan is making a head start to build itself into a hub for economic and trade cooperation with Taiwan under Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP). The existing Petty Commodity Trading Market towards Taiwan and the Online Marketplace for Cross-Straits Agricultural and Fishery Products will be optimized for the better.” Chen Xunming, deputy director of the Administrative Committee of Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone said Pingtan strives to build into the first stop for Taiwan products entering the mainland market.

As an important passage for land and water transportation and a distribution center for imports and exports, Pingtan Port has shown robust momentum. In the first half of this year, its throughput reached 159,290 tons, a year-on-year increase of 100.55%.

Pingtan’s total imports of agricultural and fishery products from Taiwan continued to increase in value by approximately 583 million yuan in the first half of this year, an increase of 98.3%. The logistic trade registered growth against trend amid the pandemic, with Taiwan-bound marine express business ranking first on the mainland, accounting for up to 60% of the total.

In recent years, Pingtan has successively opened marine routes to northern, central and southern Taiwan, broadening the freight channels for Taiwan’s agricultural and fishery products to enter the mainland.

At the end of last year, Pingtan Strait Rail-Road Bridge was fully opened to traffic. Chen Xunming noted that the bridge strengthened the links between Pingtan and Taoyuan Airport, Changle Airport, Taipei Port, and Jiangyin Port in Fujian. The "Pingtan-Taiwan-Global" sea-air intermodal passage has gradually taken shape.

Huaxin (Pingtan) Logistics Co., Ltd. settled in Pingtan in 2012, mainly engaged in ship route operations, cross-border logistics, cross-Straits cold chain logistics, and postal express transshipment. "Pingtan's cross-Straits logistics channels can achieve low cost by ship cum high efficiency by air." Chen Xiangquan, general manager of the company, said, "The whole process is smooth, efficient and fast, allowing us to attract more partners."

Pingtan works with leading logistics companies such as Cainiao under Alibaba Group, while the well-known industry players attract upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry to land in Pingtan. Pingtan has also rolled out a host of incentives to slash overall logistics costs.

For the next five years, Pingtan proposed that it will seize the strategic opportunity of RCEP to assist Taiwan's manufacturing industry in developing the market of the RCEP members. Pingtan will work on opening special trains for carrying postal and cross-border e-commerce parcels, pushing for the launch of high-speed freight trains, and expanding the “hinterland-Pingtan-Taiwan” two-way sea-rail-air intermodal channel.

"We aim for greater breakthroughs in promoting economic and trade cooperation across the Taiwan Straits." Chen Xunming said that Pingtan will cultivate featured markets for Taiwan’s commodities, agriculture and fisheries, animals and plants, and traditional Chinese medicinal materials across the Straits, create pioneer zones for exchanges and cooperation in the film and television industry as well as emerging film and television industry for high-quality development across the Straits, explore bonded processing and marketing of beauty products and create a major channel for Taiwan’s beauty products to enter the mainland market and a regional gathering center for the beauty industry, and deepen financial cooperation and innovation by improving the "Taiwan-funded board" of the Straits Equity Exchange Center and expedite the concentration of financial institutions across the Straits.

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