Oct 22 marked the 100th day of the implementation of the “Pingtan Closure”, a special customs mechanism in the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone (PCPZ) in Fujian province.

Specifically, "Pingtan Closure" refers to the establishment of an integrated customs supervision and management system covering the entire PCPZ in July, where a slew of qualified businesses and imported cargoes enjoy tax incentives such as exemptions and rebates.

Currently, there are 327 enterprises in Pingtan which have filed records of import and export businesses, including eight engaged in manufacturing, according to the local customs authority.

Since the Pingtan Closure, a total of 182 million yuan ($30 million) in tax exemptions were realized on those enterprises which piled up 603 batches of imports and exports worth 186 million dollars.

TPK Pingtan, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s TPK Holdings, which is the world’s largest touch panel maker, is one of the local enterprises benefiting a lot from the tax policy, for a large portion of its manufacturing equipment is imported from overseas.

“We enjoy the tax exemptions on imported equipment and materials for infrastructure construction. And materials for manufacturing are handled as bonded goods,” said a manager from the company.

“The amount of exempted value-added tax alone amounts to 25 million dollars. It really removed much tax pressure from us and helped cut down the cost of production,” he added.

Pingtan Closure also led to the booming of a local duty-free market in sales of commodities imported from Taiwan.

Because of the customs incentives, a lot of Taiwan’s commercial associations and well-known enterprises have settled in the market, which is the second one of its kind on the Chinese mainland.

There are more than 4,100 types of Taiwanese goods on sale at the market. And about 3.8 million dollars’ worth of commodities there are free of tax once imported.

Four months since its inauguration in June, the market has reached gross sales of 21 million yuan from purchases by nearly 110,000 buyers.

More Taiwanese enterprises have been attracted to Pingtan in the wake of the Pingtan Closure. Figures show that in the first three quarters of this year, 127 Taiwanese firms were set up in Pingtan, which is a 1.9 times increase over the same period last year.

As of the end of September, there are 266 Taiwanese enterprises in action in Pingtan.

To provide a better service for local companies, Pingtan’s customs authority recently issued a guidance that aims to take up 18 measures boosting the mechanism innovation, opening of ports, major project construction and growth of burgeoning trades.

The customs will establish special service mechanisms for high technology enterprises and assist them in the clearance of imports and exports of their cargoes.