The Forum on the Development of Port and Shipping Enterprises, a sub-forum of the 2022 China Navigation Day, concluded on September 6 in Pingtan, an island off E China's Fujian province. The forum brought guest speakers from government departments, research institutes, service providers in the shipping industry, and other related industry associations. 

Pingtan is home to China's shipping industry. According to estimated data, Pingtan has 200 registered shipping companies nationwide and close to 1,200 ships, with a capacity of 18 million DWT. About 589 ships are registered in Pingtan, recording close to 5.91 million DWT and ranking the island as Fujian's top for 6 consecutive years.

Pingtan has launched quite a few innovative measures that give shipping enterprises an edge and contribute to the development of the shipping industry. 

In 2014, Pingtan rolled out incentives to increase shipping ability, scale up operations and subsidize office rent. In 2016, Pingtan initiated the first joint handling service for ship certificates nationwide, which was commended and promoted by the State Council in 2018 as a reformative pilot effort in the free trade zone. Pingtan revised the policy to provide more attractiveness for newly-built ships and ships with a tonnage of 20,000 or more registered in Pingtan. 

As the only comprehensive pilot zone on the mainland for accelerating cross-Straits integration, Pingtan has leveraged its geographical proximity to Taiwan and opened two passenger ro-ro routes to Taipei and Taichung. It only takes 2.5 to 3 hours between Pingtan and Taiwan by ship, making it the fastest marine route between the two sides of the Straits. Since 2011, the ships have carried as many as 1 million passengers.

Pingtan also took the lead to achieve full coverage of direct freight transportation with major ports in northern, central, and southern Taiwan. The container ship “Taipei Express” can reach Taipei in 6 hours. Fruits in Taiwan are picked in the morning and can be put on shelves for sale in the afternoon, realizing low shipping costs at air cargo speed.

Data shows that over 20 million deliveries were shipped from the bonded imported warehouses in Pingtan, accounting for about 70% of Fujian’s total. According to incomplete statistics, more than 50% of the cross-border e-commerce parcels on the mainland were sent from the Pingtan port. 

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