Song Yuan Quanzhou can become the world's marine trade center, its own long maritime tradition is important, but the "east wind" that sent it to Qingyun came from the great importance attached by the central government to marine commerce and trade at that time, and the institutional innovation derived from it. Song and Yuanquan seized the opportunity to guide development with flexible and efficient concepts, which still have a positive impact on contemporary society.
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Quanzhou Shuimen Lane, a mediocre waterway passes through the alley. A thousand years ago, quanzhou shipping division, the center of the international trade and goods, was located next to the waterway.
In the era of prosperous maritime trade, the municipal shipping department was extremely powerful, and where it was established reflected the importance that the central government at that time attached to this place. In the second year of the Northern Song Dynasty, in 1087 AD, the Fujian Road Municipal Shipping Division was established in Quanzhou.
Director of Shishi City Museum Li Guohong
"At this time, the status of Quanzhou's official trading port was confirmed."
Professor, School of International Journalism and Communication, Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, Historian and Writer He Hui
"At that time, the dependence of the imperial court on taxes generated by overseas trade was increasing, which also showed that the Chinese market was highly developed at that time, which led to a surge in demand for overseas goods."
The Quanzhou Municipal Shipping Department has both major functions such as customs, investment promotion, and diplomacy. In the Song Dynasty, at the Nine-Day Mountain Prayer Ceremony in Quanzhou in winter and summer, the officials of the Municipal Shipping Department will also work with local government officials in Quanzhou, the Nanwai Zongzhengji Royal Family and other people to pray for the wind for the Shang dynasty as official representatives, demonstrating the official importance attached to maritime trade. In the face of the higher political status and more development resources brought by the Municipal Shipping Department, Song Yuanquanzhou also actively explored within the policy framework. According to the literature, during the Yuan Dynasty, other domestic ports "fifteen pumps for goods" and "only Quanzhou took one out of thirty", that is to say, foreign merchant ships came to Quanzhou to declare customs, and compared with going to other ports, they could pay half of the tariffs, which had considerable attraction for foreign businessmen. It is precisely because of the support from the central government and the flexible innovation of the local government that Quanzhou in the Song and Yuan dynasties became one of the important sources of national finance and taxation, and thus achieved the legendary "first largest port in the East".
How to let the policy dividend give full play to the greatest advantage, and how to let the "good seeds" of institutional innovation obtain a "bumper harvest" on the land of Quanzhou today? Quanzhou's seizing of opportunities, flexibility and efficiency are in line with those of the millennium before. In 2016, Quanzhou Export Processing Zone was officially upgraded to Quanzhou Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, which can effectively dock the policy functions of the free trade zone and is the most open export-oriented economic comprehensive service platform in Quanzhou. In the past five years, Quanzhou has been actively learning from the system of the pilot free trade zone and innovating measures in combination with market conditions. Not long ago, in the Quanzhou Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, the "9610" customs clearance site environmental facilities are finally being improved and debugged.
Lin Qi, deputy director of the Quanzhou Comprehensive Free Trade Zone Administration
"This is the first 9610 regulatory place in Xiamen Customs District to open in the comprehensive bonded area, which will greatly reduce the logistics costs of cross-border e-commerce enterprises, improve the competitiveness of local cross-border e-commerce and cross-border logistics enterprises, and further improve the cross-border e-commerce format of Quanzhou Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, helping to promote the regional radiation and regional aggregation effect of cross-border e-commerce in Quanzhou."
The Quanzhou Shihu Port Bonded Logistics Center (Type B), located in the Shihu Port of Quanzhou Port Center, has been officially sealed and operated, and it has taken less than a year since the start of construction, fully demonstrating the "Speed of Quanzhou".
Wang Mingyi, chief of the comprehensive section of the Shishi Office of Quanzhou Customs
"Imported goods, entering the region, are equivalent to goods that have not entered the customs territory, can be bonded, and import tariffs are not levied for the time being." Domestic commodities entering the zone can be regarded as having been exported, and export tax rebates can be applied to the relevant departments. After the completion of the project, it will provide supporting services related to industrial transformation and upgrading and structural adjustment for a number of 100-billion-level industrial clusters in Quanzhou. ”
If it is said that the municipal shipping department was the institutional guarantee sent by the central government for Quanzhou's maritime trade during the Song and Yuan dynasties, then the people of Quanzhou a thousand years ago did not live up to this historical opportunity and truly achieved "good wind with strength, send me to Qingyun". Guided by the situation, actively striving, having the courage to innovate, and maximizing the policy dividend, the development wisdom of Song Yuanquanzhou still has a far-reaching impact on today's society. From ocean-going commerce to cross-border e-commerce, from tariff concessions to logistics services, contemporary Quanzhou is actively responding to policies, building platforms, and completing chains, making the modern import and export commodity trade pattern more perfect.