By HE WEI and WEI TIAN (China Daily)

Source: http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-09/13/content_16966663.htm

Shanghai wishes to become one of the leading locations to conduct global trade and confirm its status as a world-leading financial hub.

The establishment of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) may support this development and create new opportunities for manufacturers in the region.

“Goods in the zone may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured and re-exported without the intervention of customs authorities,” Sun Lijian, a professor of economics at Fudan University.

Sun said such a tariff-free environment would foster offshore trade and offer tantalising new opportunities to Chinese exporters keen to expand their production capabilities to other low-cost markets in the region. He added that such eased rules would also help them concentrate on the higher-value-added front and back ends of the manufacturing process.

“In order to support the ordinary Chinese social model, the mainland needs more sophisticated financial services. When people feel that their future is more secure, they will consume more,” Dan Steinbock, research director of international business at the India, China and America Institute in the US.