The freighter "COSCO Shipping Virgo" slowly sailed into the harbor basin of Dongjiang District of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone under the starlight and docked at the Pacific Container Terminal of Tianjin Port.
The freighter came from Hamburg, Germany, carrying large parts of Airbus aircraft, which was hoisted in less than an hour. A few hours later, the large parts of the aircraft were quickly delivered to the Airbus Asia final assembly line located in the airport area of Tianjin Free Trade Zone, ensuring the smooth delivery of Tianjin produced Airbus A320 and A330 series aircraft.
Since 2020, Airbus's final assembly line in Tianjin has started to increase its capacity. There are not only A320 and A330 aircraft types here, but also officially signed the A350 completion and delivery center project in 2019, which marks that Tianjin will have the comprehensive production capacity of Airbus's existing single channel and dual channel aircraft types, and become the largest Airbus production base outside Europe. By the end of 2019, more than 12 A330 and 420 A320 aircraft have been delivered. As Tianjin Customs explored in the pilot free trade zone to test important parts such as aircraft materials, self use equipment and recycled packaging materials, the "batch in and batch out and centralized declaration" has greatly saved the customs clearance time of enterprises, making the "one stack" declaration forms that used to require one declaration per batch become one-time declaration according to the category of aviation materials, greatly improving the production efficiency of Airbus Tianjin assembly line.
In the supporting project, China Aviation Industry Corporation Tianjin Xifei will complete the system assembly of the front and rear fuselage sections of the A320 in Tianjin, and then hand it over to the Airbus Tianjin final assembly line for the final assembly of the aircraft. In the future, the total assembly capacity of 6 aircrafts per month will be reached. Such localized supporting projects also make Tianjin aviation industry chain more perfect.
No "one-day tour", customers "come at will"
If the final assembly of aircraft shows the strength of a city's manufacturing industry, the aviation maintenance industry represents an emerging field with higher industrial chain and value chain. The aircraft is such a sophisticated aviation machinery that operation, regular inspection and maintenance are essential. Goodrich Aviation Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. is less than three kilometers away from the Airbus Asian final assembly line. An aircraft engine of a well-known domestic cargo airline has just entered the factory for maintenance.
"This is on the Boeing 757 aircraft. After using the reaction thruster for a long time, it needs regular maintenance. Just like the car we drive to the 4S store for maintenance, Goodrich is the 4S store of the aircraft. We are repairing the engine cowling with 16 layers of composite materials." Said Liu Jie, general manager of Goodrich Aviation Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd.
The staff at the other end of the maintenance line is installing and debugging a new autoclave, which can rapidly characterize the composite material under high temperature and pressure and has strength, toughness and durability. The COVID-19 epidemic at the beginning of this year had a great impact on the global aviation industry. With the help of the airport area authority, Goodrich took the lead in resuming work and production, which also led to the transfer of many maintenance businesses to Tianjin.
At present, Bombardier, Goodrich, AVIC CITIC Helicopter Maintenance, Haite, General Electric, Lufthansa and other high-end inspection and maintenance enterprises have gathered in the airport area of Tianjin Free Trade Zone, becoming an important high-end maintenance and detection base in the Asia Pacific region.
On the north side of the apron of Tianjin Binhai International Airport, in the two hangars of Tianjin Haite Aircraft Engineering Co., Ltd., five aircraft are undergoing overhaul, modification and other operations at the same time. There are not many workers on the site. Except for the roar of aircraft taking off and landing from the runway not far away, the whole site is in order, busy and not in disorder.
Tianjin Haide was founded in 2009 and officially opened in 2014. It has repaired and delivered more than 350 aircraft for more than 20 customers at home and abroad. Among them, the last two years are the explosive growth period of the company's business.
"First, with the completion of the new airport in Beijing and the increase of international business in Tianjin Airport, the demand for maintenance of international airliners in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is increasing. In 2018, we built a new second hangar, and the maintenance capacity has been improved at once. Second, we benefited from the policy profits of the Free Trade Zone." Chen Jiancong, general manager of Tianjin Haite Aircraft Engineering Co., Ltd., said with a smile.
The so-called "policy dividend" refers to the "ten measures to support and encourage bonded aviation repair and remanufacturing in the airport area" issued by the Tianjin Free Trade Zone last June.
Among them, the most beneficial thing for Haite is that "international customers, such as the aircraft of overseas airlines, do not need to go abroad for a" one-day tour "once it breaks down at home. They can fly directly to the customs for duty-free maintenance by making formal declaration."
After the implementation of the "Ten Rules" policy, customers can "come at will", and the international order volume of Haite has doubled.
only for formal import and export, it not only saves the time of machine transfer and customs clearance, but also saves customers and maintenance enterprises a lot of costs.
"From the perspective of customers, the cost of aircraft transfer can be saved. From the perspective of Haite, we don't need to pay any more deposits or letters of guarantee. Take an aircraft that is used as a passenger to change cargo as an example. In terms of letter of guarantee, a single aircraft can directly save about 130000 interest expenses. In addition to other hand fees, a total of 240000 to 50000 yuan can be saved for an aircraft, effectively reducing the company's cost of undertaking overseas maintenance business."
Favorable policies enable enterprises to expand new international businesses and accelerate their investment intentions.
"Now the industry category of bonded maintenance in the airport area has expanded from aviation manufacturing, that is, bonded maintenance of aircraft, to engineering machinery, ships, sea and air equipment." Wang Dawei, deputy director of the Tianjin Airport Work Bureau of the Tianjin Free Trade Zone, said.
What has changed from buying rent?
On April 19, a Boeing 747 cargo plane landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, and the LEAP-1A spare engine imported through the cooperation between Changlong Airlines and China Merchants Bank Leasing officially entered China. While the engine is unloaded, transferred and stored at Shanghai Airport, the Dongjiang Customs in Tianjin started to accept the formalities for the entry of this engine, tax declaration for leasing trade and so on at the same time. It took only one day to complete all the formalities, and the engine went straight to Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport, the location of Changlong Airlines.
Gao Yingzhan, secretary of the party committee of Changlong Airlines, sighed that this lease solved the problem of air materials shortage of the enterprise at the lowest cost and at the fastest speed: "Due to the impact of the epidemic, some overseas air materials are still in short supply. In the past, like this situation, engines have to go through a lot of procedures and links. This time, we will arrive in Hangzhou in a one-stop manner to ensure that our flights can fly normally and the transportation cost is greatly reduced."
The reason why airlines can enjoy the fast development is the joint operation of the Administrative Committee of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, Dongjiang District, Customs, SAFE and other departments, as well as the breakthrough in the innovative mode of off-site supervision of aircraft engines, Tian Yuan, Deputy Chief of the New Trade Supervision Section of Dongjiang Customs, explained the whole process: "According to the traditional supervision mode, the aircraft engines must be transported from Shanghai to the enclosure of the special customs supervision area in East Xinjiang, and then they can be transported to Hangzhou, where they are actually used, after being supervised by the customs. We have realized the actual supervision of the goods through the cooperation between customs and the whole information chain, which is basically a matter of seconds."
The data shows that in 2019, the newly added leased assets in Dongjiang District of Tianjin Free Trade Zone exceeded 10 billion dollars, and the leasing business of 1593 aircraft, 116 engines, 174 international shipping ships, 21 offshore oil drilling platforms, aircraft, ships, and marine equipment was completed in total. The total leased assets of aircraft, ships, and marine equipment were about 92.756 billion dollars, and the business scale continued to maintain its leading edge. In the first half of 2020, the leasing business of 35 aircraft, 14 engines, 24 international ships and 9 offshore platforms will be completed, and Dongjiang will remain the second largest aircraft leasing center in the world.
Continuous institutional innovation and constant exploration of new lease objects and new business models have enabled Dongjiang to maintain its leading position in the field of financial leasing, and the new model has been gradually replicated and promoted throughout the country through Dongjiang.
What's the relationship between leasing aircraft and ordinary people?
At present, the number of China's civil aviation fleet has exceeded 3300, of which about 70% are "leased". The change from leasing to buying is not only the asset structure of airlines, but also the way people travel.
"As the number of civil aviation fleets increases, the number of routes will naturally increase, which means that people will have more choices and the ticket price will naturally be lower." Liu Qingliang, Director of the Dongjiang Free Trade Zone Work Bureau of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, said, "It is our original intention to set up the pilot free trade zone to constantly benefit the people with innovative achievements, which is to 'test the system for the country and seek development for the local'."
The development of financial leasing industry is a microcosm of the institutional innovation of Tianjin Free Trade Zone. In the past five years, from the first bonded leasing business in China to Dongjiang, it has become the second largest aircraft leasing cluster in the world. The leasing objects have expanded from aircraft to ships, offshore platforms, aeroengines, etc., which is the support of strong innovation and service capabilities.
Shen Lei, director of the Dongjiang District Administrative Committee of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, said, "We strive to make all-round and three-dimensional reforms in investment, trade, shipping, finance and regulatory services, from point to area. In the future, our goal is to transform into a world-class port and a free trade port, and strive to explore new paths for deepening reform and expanding opening up across the country and accumulate new experience."
Cross border e-commerce - buy the world, sell the world
Every year, the most competitive time for e-commerce is two periods, "6.18" and "Double 11". This year's 6.18 is somewhat different. Under the epidemic, it is a great test for domestic and overseas industrial chains and supply chains. However, Tianjin has handed over a very impressive report card. According to statistics, from June 1 to 18, Tianjin completed 2.5216 million cross-border e-commerce import declaration orders, a year-on-year increase of 2.06%, and the import sales volume was 459 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.77%. Cosmetics, health care products and imported milk powder ranked among the top three categories of commodity sales, and washing and protection products ranked among the top five for the first time. "At the beginning of the epidemic, the most obvious increase came from epidemic prevention materials. Hand sanitizers, thermometers and imported food grew rapidly." Cui Junjie, general manager of Kaola.com Tianjin warehouse, told reporters that "the sales volume increased sharply at the beginning of the epidemic, and the supply could only be guaranteed by the bonded stock mode." Bonded goods preparation mode is to transport overseas goods to the warehouse in the special supervision area of Tianjin Customs in advance, after sales on the e-commerce platform, and then transfer them from Tianjin warehouse to surrounding provinces and cities, so that goods can be received 24 hours after the order is placed in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.
However, the real test for e-commerce enterprises began to emerge after the epidemic. Many people work at home, and their desire for consumption and shopping is also declining, which has obviously affected the sales of clothing, sunglasses, leather bags and other categories. To this end, the cross-border e-commerce enterprise "Kuba Global Shopping" in the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone "moved the live broadcast room into its bonded warehouse in the Port Free Trade Zone, and recommended imported goods to consumers through live broadcast. "In the special session of Japan, South Korea, Europe and Australia, the anchor came directly to the shelf, and the first live broadcast saw thousands of people instantly." Li Weiwei, the general manager of "Cool Bar Global Shopping", pointed to the background system and explained: "Consumers will place orders while watching the live broadcast. The cross-border supply chain system connected with the background of the live broadcast room will push these orders to the customs in a timely manner for three order collision clearance. At the same time, the system will push them to warehousing, express delivery and other links for packaging and distribution. The entire online shopping process will be operated automatically by the system." The whole process of automatic operation not only saves manpower but also improves efficiency. In addition, the customs has also changed from providing paper documents to electronic data transmission for cross-border e-commerce. The customs clearance time has been greatly reduced from 72 hours to 24 hours, which also ensures the rapid delivery of goods.
With the upgrading of people's consumption, more and more cosmetics, red wine and imported snacks from "overseas shopping" are available, and "Made in China" products are also exported to the world through cross-border e-commerce. Cloud Power (Tianjin) E-Commerce Co., Ltd. mainly sells its own brand furniture, fitness equipment, tire auto parts and other products, which are exported to Europe and the United States through cross-border e-commerce. Under the epidemic, the sales of these products on foreign e-commerce platforms soared. Wang Xiaowei, general manager of Cloud Power (Tianjin) E-Commerce Co., Ltd., said that enterprises with the overseas warehouse model have taken the lead: "We have been stocking up in advance, even though we have closed our warehouse in New York and have five warehouses in the United States, we are still continuing to ship. We come to help European and American suppliers solve supply chain problems."
Moreover, on July 1 of this year, the General Administration of Customs launched a pilot project of cross-border e-commerce B2B export supervision in 10 customs directly under the General Administration of Customs, including Tianjin Free Trade Zone. Compared with traditional export goods, the pilot set up two regulatory codes, 9710 and 9810, specifically for cross-border e-commerce B2B export goods. Export enterprises enjoy priority in inspection and further improve the efficiency of customs clearance. Wang Jianran, general manager of Jinmao Supply Chain Management Service Co., Ltd., told reporters that the first declaration of enterprises only took 10 seconds and customs clearance was completed in two minutes. This export pilot also solved the problem of profit capital flowing back to China when cross-border e-commerce enterprises returned goods and sold overseas, further improving the profitability of foreign trade enterprises. Chen Lihe, deputy general manager of Jinmaitong Supply Chain Management Service Co., Ltd., said, "In the past, according to the requirements of general trade, you declared 100 yuan, and you will get 100 yuan back when you come back. Now, according to this model, for example, I declared 100 yuan when I declared, and the profit from overseas sales may be 30 yuan. In this way, the collection of foreign exchange can be paid at 130 yuan. All the funds can be returned to China, which is a fast and regular channel."
The data shows that in the first month of the launch of the pilot project of cross-border e-commerce B2B export supervision, 9 enterprises at Tianjin Port applied for the export value of cross-border e-commerce B2B to reach more than 2 million US dollars, equivalent to about 14 million yuan. Enterprises' willingness to go global through cross-border e-commerce has been significantly enhanced.
Over the past five years, the Tianjin Free Trade Zone has made bold efforts, made bold trials and made independent reforms. It has implemented a total of 428 system innovation measures, reported 244 pilot results and innovation practice cases to the state, copied and promoted 37 pilot experiences and practice cases nationwide, copied and promoted 230 experience cases to the city and relevant regions, and released 65 financial innovation cases. It has explored new paths for the national trial system and regional development. The dividend of reform and opening up has been released continuously, giving full play to the role of the national system innovation as a "pilot field".
The pilot free trade zone plays a leading role in opening up to the outside world. The implementation of innovative measures such as the negative list of foreign investment, the reform of overseas investment management mode, the new international trade and the facilitation of cross-border investment and financing has made the pilot free trade zone an important base for regional "bringing in" and "going out", a major channel for international trade in Beijing Tianjin Hebei and a hub platform for cross-border investment and financing, and significantly improved the level of regional opening up to the outside world, It has provided important support for the construction of "one base and three districts" and the creation of world-class urban agglomeration in Beijing Tianjin Hebei.
The institutional innovation of the pilot free trade zone has greatly stimulated the market vitality and promoted the transformation and upgrading of economic development and high-quality development of Tianjin and Binhai New Area. The leading industries such as financial leasing, commercial factoring, parallel imported automobiles, aviation manufacturing and maintenance, etc. have kept ahead of the rest of the country. The introduction of new driving forces such as biomedicine, intelligent manufacturing and innovative finance has accelerated, which has significantly promoted the high-quality development of the city's economy.