Voice of Zhejiang reporters Ye Shuwei and Gao Song; Correspondents: Zhu Jianmei, Tan Shenjie
An international airport with an annual passenger throughput of more than 40 million and an Oriental port with the world's largest cargo throughput for 15 consecutive years have set up a "bridge" for Zhejiang's opening to the outside world. Hangzhou and Ningbo, airports and seaports, through continuous optimization of business processes, breaking through business barriers, competition and win-win results, together to build a three-dimensional and efficient global connectivity network in the province.
Recently, Zhang Rong, general manager of Zhejiang Airport Logistics Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the provincial airport group, wrote a memo on his mobile phone, in which the names of "Suzhou" and "Hungary" were marked with big asterisks. Zhang Rong said that these two places are the expansion and upgrading of Hangzhou Airport's "off-site cargo station". Suzhou is the first "non-local cargo station" outside the province, and the specific landing of business will be realized before June this year, and Budapest, Hungary, as the first overseas cargo station, is also about to be listed.
The so-called "non-local cargo station" refers to the airport to provide delivery and pick-up services for goods in other places, and the owner does not have to worry about the problem of goods to the airport in other places, but the cooperative airport opens up ground transportation routes between the place of origin, transit terminal and the final destination of the goods, so as to achieve fast and convenient transportation.
"We first did a pilot in Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou and Ningbo did a mutual remote cargo station to open up, and now it is gradually upgrading, and slowly it is expanding to the Yangtze River Delta and overseas, and we will further expand our tentacles."
In October 2020, Hangzhou Airport and Ningbo Airport signed a contract to become "off-site cargo stations" for each other, and by 2022, this model has covered all seven airports in the province. Huang Jiahui, business assistant of the business development department of Ningbo Airport Xiangying Development Co., Ltd., said that the sharing of route cargo station resources between the two places has greatly improved the transportation efficiency of goods.
"We also roughly counted that the average number of goods transported from Hangzhou is more than 20 tons per month, and on an annual basis, there must be hundreds of tons."
There is a slogan in the provincial airport group - "Zhejiang goods Zhejiang go", as the name suggests, it is hoped that Zhejiang's goods can be exported through Zhejiang's own airport. According to data from Hangzhou Customs, in 2023, the total import and export volume of Zhejiang Province will be 4.90 trillion yuan, ranking first in the country in terms of foreign trade contribution. However, Zhou Bin, head of the marketing department of Zhejiang Airport Logistics Development Co., Ltd., calculated that the proportion of Zhejiang goods exported through local airports was less than 20% last year. In his view, the establishment of the "off-site cargo station" between Hangzhou and Ningbo has made a good start, and the greater significance in the long term lies in the resource integration, competition and win-win situation of the airport in the province. During the "Red Sea Channel Crisis" this year, there was a shortage of aircraft on international routes, and the route from Ningbo to Liege, Belgium once faced the dilemma of "no plane to fly".
"Temporarily, because Hangzhou's Liege has also been flying, I communicated with the airlines in Hangzhou that are flying this Liege route, asked him to fly more frequently to Ningbo, and then stabilized this route to ensure the needs of these seagoing goods."
The airport's "Zhejiang goods go to Zhejiang", there is a similar mention in the seaport - "Zhejiang goods go to Zhejiang Port". Lou Xiaoming, a senior engineer at the Infrastructure Research Institute of the Provincial Development Planning Research Institute, said that the airport hub focuses more on products with high added value and outstanding timeliness requirements, such as electronic products and high-end manufacturing. Port hubs are more focused on commodities such as iron ore, building materials, and grain, but the development ideas and paths of the two are similar.
"What they all have in common is to focus on our seaports and airports to play the role of gateway hubs, promote the quality of our international logistics, reduce costs and increase efficiency, better serve our enterprises in Zhejiang Province, and realize the needs of import and export logistics, as well as the development needs of open market trade."
According to the statistics of Ningbo Customs, in the first quarter of this year, nearly three-quarters of the import and export goods at Ningbo Port came from enterprises in the province, of which the total value of import and export goods of Hangzhou enterprises accounted for nearly one-fifth. At the same time, the annual sea-rail intermodal container throughput from Hangzhou to Ningbo Zhoushan Port has exceeded 100,000 TEUs, and the characteristics of "dual-core drive" between the two places are becoming more and more obvious.
Hangzhou Zhongyi Industrial Co., Ltd. mainly produces outdoor home furnishing products, and most of its customers come from Europe and the United States. Recently, a batch of park tables and chairs worth 200,000 yuan exported to the United States had to be reworked because of quality problems. Wang Zhuqin, the company's export business manager, asked the Ningbo port supervision department for help in a hurry. After confirming that the documents of the enterprises are complete and the compliance declaration, Ningbo Customs will open a green channel for them to clear customs and give priority to them. Shao Fangbing, deputy chief of the export section of Haishu Customs, which belongs to Ningbo Customs, said:
"Their ticket has been reviewed first, and the declaration, as well as their accompanying documents, are indeed formal and compliant. If there is no problem according to the process, he will be released. ”
Looking at the electronic information that was successfully released on the computer, Wang Zhuqin breathed a long sigh of relief.
"At that time, it was really urgent, and Ningbo Customs was very cooperative with us, and then helped us solve the problem in a few hours and a very short time. In the end, our cargo went out very smoothly and according to the original shipping schedule. ”
The key to solving the problem lies in the word "cooperation" between the two places, win-win cooperation and dislocation coordination. In the first quarter of this year, the transit time of the two sea-river intermodal transport routes connecting Hangzhou and Ningbo, the "Dongzhou-Zhapu-Ningbo" line and the "Xiasha-Zhapu-Ningbo" line, was shortened from the original 5 days to 4 days; In April, Ningbo introduced a new round of 31 cross-border trade facilitation reform measures, and the next step will be to explore the application of Ningbo port inter-departmental incentive measures to Hangzhou AEO customs certification enterprises.
In addition to airports and seaports, the construction of transportation and logistics networks between Hangzhou and Ningbo has also been frequently reported in recent years: on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2024, the Hangzhou-Shaoning-Ningbo Expressway, known as the "Smart Expressway", will be completed and opened to traffic, and another high-speed corridor between the two urban agglomerations of Hangzhou and Ningbo will be officially put into operation; In July 2023, the "Second Canal Channel" will be opened to navigation, and ships can directly reach Ningbo Zhoushan Port through the sea-river intermodal transportation mode, reducing the comprehensive logistics cost by more than 20%......
Lou Xiaoming, a senior engineer at the Infrastructure Research Institute of the Provincial Development Planning Research Institute, said that relying on the "big port" of the airport and seaport to enhance the radiation and competitiveness of the logistics system, the province's strategic superposition advantages will be transformed into development advantages.
"The key is to do a good job in the two articles of 'dislocation development' and 'synergy and linkage'. One is to further enhance the radiant energy level of ports and airport hubs, so that some subjects can go out in an orderly manner. The second aspect is to strengthen the linkage between Hangzhou and Ningbo hubs, and further strengthen the logistics connectivity efficiency between Hangzhou and Ningbo through sea-rail intermodal transport and sea-river intermodal transport. ”