The city of Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, would like to turn itself into a new Silk Road starting point, so it is working on a Silk Road Economic Belt Shaanxi (Xi’an) Free Trade Area, having gotten State Council approval, with the municipal Development and Reform Commission, which came up with a related report in September, in charge of planning and construction work.

To push the plan forward, the city arranged a Round Table Meeting for Cities along the Silk Road last month, where it signed cooperation agreements with the cities of Portici and Caserta, Italy, and Lule, Sweden, and announced the beginning of work on a Silk Road Culture Park, Museum and Square.

The city’s customs office also sent officials to Shanghai to study free trade area reforms and innovative customs systems, and, as a result, it has built a customs system that is similar to Shanghai’s Free Trade Pilot Zone and now has four special customs areas, a bonded zone, high-tech bonded zone, and export processing areas.

The province also has its own plans to push construction work on the free trade zone for railway, air and port services, for example, the international freight train, Chang’an, which travels between Xi’an and Central Asia four times a month and flights to Central Asian cities such as Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, and Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, which are already open.

Source: China Daily