(Yicai Global) Aug. 19 -- Since being set up three years ago, Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area, a special economic space in the city’s free trade zone, has been working on institutional innovations to improve special economic functions such as high-end shipping, cross-border financial services, and international trade, according to local officials.

Lingang Special Area has made 87 institutional innovations, liberalizing aspects of investment, trade, capital, transport, and employment practice, 36 of which were pioneering projects in China, Zhao Yihuai, deputy director of the area’s administration, said on Aug. 17 at a conference to hail its third anniversary.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, added Lingang to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone in the southeast of the city on Aug. 20, 2019. The area is “an important strategic deployment for further opening-up” and “an important measure to show China's strong commitment to all-round openness in the new era and to actively lead the healthy development of economic globalization,” according to its official website.

Because of Lingang’s institutional innovations, more high-quality international resources have been directed to Shanghai. Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Area has welcomed 12 of the world’s top 50 freight companies, three of the top 10 ship management companies, and four of the 10 leading bonded ship-loaded oil suppliers, according to the local government.

The bunkering of bonded liquefied natural gas for international shipment is one of the first of its kind developed in China. Since March, Yangshan Port in Shanghai had completed 11 LNG refueling operations for a total of 63,000 cubic meters as of Aug. 15, Shen Weihua, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, said at the conference.

At the end of May, 27 containers heading to Tianjin Port from Canada transited through Yangshan Port, where they were loaded on a cargo vessel of Danish shipping giant Maersk, Shen added, noting that it was the first time China had allowed coastal piggybacking by a foreign shipper. It is expected to attract ships transiting from Busan in South Korea and from Singapore to Shanghai, he said.

Lingang Special Area will continue to make institutional innovations, meeting market and corporate needs, and keep on expanding high-level opening-up and strive to be a special economic zone with an enhanced competitiveness and reputation globally, Zhao said.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione