(Yicai Global) Oct. 12 -- China will construct 24 key cold chain logistics bases across the country, and one of them will be in the Lingang Special Area of China Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone.

The second batch of centers will join the first group to form a national backbone of 41 facilities for cold chain logistics, covering 27 provinces, the National Development and Reform Commission wrote in a document released yesterday. Eight of the 24 bases will be in eastern China, four in central China, nine in western China, and three in northeast China.

In November 2021, China proposed building about 100 national backbone cold chain logistics bases in major agricultural production, distribution and sales areas to develop the industry, according to the 14th Five-Year Plan. It started setting up the first batch of 17 bases in late 2020.

The Lingang location will be in the Luchaogang area of the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone. The base will rely on the economic function of the free trade zone, policy advantages of the customs-free trade area of Yangshan, and two core logistics hubs including the Yangshan Deep Water Port and Shanghai Pudong International Airport to become a platform for cross-border food and pharmaceuticals trade.

The scale of China’s cold chain logistics market was about CNY418.4 billion (USD58.4 billion) last year, up 9 percent from a year earlier. Such demand totaled about 275 million tons, up 4 percent, according to data from the Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

Fresh food in China is not always transported chilled. Some 15 percent of fruit and vegetables was refrigerated during transport last year, and the corresponding rate for meat was 57 percent and that for seafood was 69 percent, whereas the rates tend to range between 80 to 90 percent in developed counties, presenting large room for China to develop its cold chain logistics, according to a research report released by the Huaon Industrial Research Institute.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi