Ningbo Free Trade Zone

In 2010, Ningbo Municipal Government started to build the 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 commodities.

To further improve its reputation and explore sales channels, NFTZ established over 10 sales centers for imported commodities 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, and 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 came 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, trial operation began. After that, the business soared and the sales value in the first year exceeded 300 million yuan ($43.48 million). 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 nine 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 commodities. 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 become an imported consumer goods fair with convenient trade, diversified functions and specialized services.

In 2017, the zone's GDP reached 17.4 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 10.7 percent. The fiscal revenue totaled 4.92 billion yuan, growing by 23.4 percent over the previous year. Revenue in the general public budgets was 2.35 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 13.4 percent. The total industrial output value was 31.9 billion yuan, increasing by 8.4 percent compared to that of the previous year. The total export-import volume reached 75 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 26.7 percent.