Ningbo Free Trade Zone

Ningbo Free Trade Zone (NFTZ for short), established in 1992, is one of the earliest free trade zones in China. It's also one of the special economic zones featuring the highest degree of opening up, most preferential policies, best functions and most active operational mechanism. In recent years, China decided to increase import and promote a balanced development of foreign trade. NFTZ is adjacent to the port and is a bonded area.

Moreover, there's a potential consumer demand in its surrounding areas. Therefore, it vigorously seized this strategic opportunity and started to build NFTZ Imported Commodity Trade Market.

In 2008, NFTZ Imported Commodity Trade Market started to import wine. After years of development, the value of import increased remarkably and the variety expanded to food and consumer goods. The market has imported over 3,000 kinds of commodities from 27 countries, including olive oil, dairy products, meat, fresh food, fruit, honey and daily necessities. There's an exhibition hall of 120,000 square meters and a professional food warehouse of 80,000 square meters. In the market, there’re more than 300 import companies. It is now the largest entity trade market for imported commodity in China.

In 2010, Ningbo Municipal Government started to build Ningbo International Trade Demonstration Zone, in order to make the city a center of international business. NFTZ is one of the strategic platforms. NFTZ and Ningbo Imported Commodity Exhibition & Trade Center (located at Ningbo International Exhibition & Conference Center) set up a joint mechanism and operation mode. It functions as an area for demonstration, warehousing, professional training and cultural exhibition. It aims at becoming a distinctive and influential center for the trade and distribution of international commodity.

To further improve its reputation and explore the sales channels, NFTZ established over 10 sales centers for imported commodity in Ninghai County (Ningbo City), Fuyang District (Hangzhou City), Wuhu City (Anhui Province), Nanchang (Jiangxi Province), etc. With Ningbo as the center, the sales network covers the Yangtze River Delta, even eastern and central China.

While making the entity market big and successful, NFTZ actively expanded its business to E-commerce. On April 22, 2013, its T-Mall flagship store formally went online. It was the first professional import market in T-Mall. In 2012, Ningbo was approved as one of the five pilot cities for cross-border E-commerce, and NFTZ was the experimental area for import business. On Nov. 27, 2013, it realized the trial operation. After that, the business soared and the sales value in the first year exceeded 300 million Yuan. This number ranked No.1 among all the experimental cities in China. On Nov.11, 2014, it joined China's "Nov.11" shopping festival and made 600,000 deals worth 110 million Yuan.

It has been 6 years since NFTZ Imported Commodity Trade Market was established. With the guidance of the local government and being market-oriented, it is now a very influential center both at home and abroad for the trade, distribution, information and price formation of imported commodity. It features a complete trade chain, an import industry cluster, smooth internal and external channels and an interactive online and offline business. NFTZ will continue to innovate and make it an imported consumer goods fair with convenient trade, diversified functions and specialized services.