Dongjiang Free Trade Zone [Photo/dongjiang.gov.cn]

The Dongjiang comprehensive bonded area, one of the three core parts of Tianjin Free Trade Port Zone, is a pioneer in reform and economic opening-up designed to attract new growth drivers.

Building itself around modern service industries such as shipping logistics, international trade, and financial leasing, it contains over 10,000 registered enterprises, and the average scale exceeds 70 million yuan ($10.07 million). Domestic and foreign investment has been growing rapidly for 10 consecutive years.

In May, the area received approval from the State Council to set up as a comprehensive bonded area with two other areas in Binhai New Area. Since then, it has been introducing new services and functions.

Speedy approval is one of the new services it has introduced to facilitate its core leasing businesses. The intelligent services deployed by local government can deal with approval materials of many companies at the same time.

"Smart approval is amazingly efficient," said Li Ding, major customer manager of Tianjin Dongjiang Aviation Assets Market Management Company. "It takes only one hour to complete the establishment and registration of 18 project companies. It was unimaginable in the past."

Officials said the application of business approvals will be extended to other fields such as petrochemicals, new energy, and logistics.

It is part of the innovative steps taken by the area to perfect its governmental services and streamline its administrative procedures in a bid to attract foreign companies.

In the first quarter of this year, 20 foreign-funded enterprises were newly added to the area, with a registered capital of $4.17 billion, an increase of 113 percent year-on-year.

As the world's second largest airplane leasing market behind that of Ireland, Dongjiang has developed some 40 models of leasing business, such as import bonded leasing and offshore leasing.

By April, a total of 1,613 airplanes had been leased out, with total assets reaching 1.5 trillion yuan since the founding of the zone in 2009.

By leveraging its prime location and the favorable policies of a newly-established comprehensive bonded zone, it will add to its high-end operations equipment R&D sector, medical industry, logistics and service trade, as well as the inspection and maintenance industry and other key industries.

To date, the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone has implemented a total of 428 innovative measures, and successively summarized and promoted 230 pilot experiences and practical cases to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and to the wider country. They feature investment management, trade facilitation, financial opening-up and innovation.