The expansion of the first comprehensive bonded zone in central China has entered the countdown to customs closure.

According to Henan Daily, on October 9, the expansion project of Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone successfully passed the joint simplified acceptance: all conditions of the 1.66-square-kilometer expansion area have met the standards, marking the countdown to customs closure operation for the first successfully approved comprehensive bonded zone expansion project in central China.

In accordance with the provisions of the *Work Rules for the Acceptance of Comprehensive Bonded Zones* issued by the General Administration of Customs, this acceptance follows the simplified acceptance procedure. Zhengzhou Customs, together with the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Provincial Department of Finance, Provincial Department of Natural Resources, Provincial Department of Commerce, Henan Provincial Taxation Service of the State Taxation Administration, and Henan Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, formed a joint acceptance team to conduct comprehensive verification and review of the expansion's basic hardware, supervision facilities and other projects, and signed the *Acceptance Review Opinions on the Expansion of Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone* on site. The acceptance team later signed the *Minutes of Acceptance of Basic and Supervision Facilities for the Expansion of Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone* with the Provincial Government, marking the official passing of the simplified acceptance for the expansion project.

This "compliance" did not come easily. From the start of construction to passing the acceptance, the expansion project took 10 months to complete all the construction of basic and supervision facilities with high standards. At present, the expansion project has fully realized the "seven connections and one leveling", all kinds of supervision facilities and intelligent systems have been completed and commissioned, fully meeting the standards of closed customs supervision, customs clearance operations and the settlement and operation of business entities.

The comprehensive bonded zone is a special customs supervision area with a high level of opening, convenient customs clearance and preferential policies, known as the "pearl on the crown" of the open economy. In October 2010, the State Council approved the establishment of the Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone, which is the 13th comprehensive bonded zone in China and the first comprehensive bonded zone in the six central provinces.

Backed by the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone and home to key foreign trade enterprises such as Foxconn, Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone recorded a total foreign trade import and export volume of 4665.2 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%, ranking second among all comprehensive bonded zones across the country in terms of import and export scale. Looking at a longer timeline, since it was put into operation under customs closure, the total import and export volume of Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone has long ranked among the top three in national comprehensive bonded zones and the first in central China, with its foreign trade scale accounting for about 70% and 50% of the total foreign trade volume of Zhengzhou City and Henan Province respectively.

Empowering the growth of Henan's foreign trade across an area of 167,000 square kilometers with a land area of only 5.073 square kilometers, Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone has been called a model of "small zone driving large province" by the General Administration of Customs. However, after more than ten years of construction and development, the land development in the original zone has been nearly saturated, and the demand for expanding development space has become increasingly urgent, which has become a practical problem that has to be faced.

In November last year, the State Council officially approved the expansion of Zhengzhou Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone, making it the first comprehensive bonded zone that successfully expanded its area in central China. At that time, some experts analyzed that in the face of the new global situation, the expanded area of the comprehensive bonded zone needs to be more closely aligned with the development needs of local industries, so that its functions are deeply integrated with the characteristics of local economy and industrial development.

Taking Zhengzhou as an example, as a hub and central city in central China, it is imperative to promote the port economy and hub economy. The development of a comprehensive hub not only requires the construction of an airport hub, but also a land port hub. As early as 2019, after being selected into the first batch of national airport-type logistics hubs, Zhengzhou successfully obtained the qualification for the construction of a national land port-type logistics hub in 2022.

The expansion of Xinzheng Comprehensive Bonded Zone will be one of the key starting points for Zhengzhou's transformation from "corridor economy" to "hub economy". According to reports, based on the advantages of air-rail combined transport, this expansion will build the first comprehensive bonded zone in central China with full coverage of airport and land port functions. After the customs closure operation, it will superimpose the policy advantages of two national first-class open ports, realizing the integrated connection and complementary advantages of airport-type and land port-type bonded functions.

Relevant officials from the Administrative Committee of Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone stated that in the next step, they will deepen the linked development of "one zone and two ports", accelerate the transformation of transportation location advantages into hub economic advantages and open competition advantages, and strive to build the expansion project into a new gateway for opening-up in central China, a new hub for multimodal transport, and a new highland for hub economic development.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Evolution", written by Yang Huan, and published with authorization from 36Kr.