The Chinese border city of Dandong, known for its bustling trade with North Korea, has unveiled a plan to become a “bridgehead” to boost trade between South Korea and China as the two nations work to formally sign a bilateral free trade deal.
The plan, put forward by the Dandong city government in Liaoning province on Tuesday during the country’s annual session of the Communist Party-controlled parliament, came as the bilateral trade deal between South Korea and China is expected to be signed within the first-half of this year.
“China and South Korea completed free trade negotiations. Dandong will make efforts to serve as a bridgehead of trade between China and South Korea,” the Chinese city government said in a statement.
The trade deal is expected to give a big boost to the city’s ambition to become a trade hub in the northern parts of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Strait, adjacent to the Korean Peninsula, it said.
Details of the Chinese city’s plan are sketchy, but the city is expanding its logistics and marketing facilities to cope with rising trade if the South Korea-China free trade deal is implemented, according to the statement.
As much as 80 percent of bilateral trade between North Korea and China is conducted through Dandong.
Although China’s trade with North Korea appears largely unaffected, large-scale economic projects between the allies have made little progress as China’s leadership has been increasingly frustrated with the North’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Last week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Beijing will spare no effort to formally sign a bilateral free trade agreement with South Korea “as soon as possible.”
The deal calls for South Korea and China to remove tariffs on about 90 percent of goods traded between the two nations over the next two decades. However, rice and cars were excluded from the deal.
Two-way trade between South Korea and China totaled $228.9 billion in 2013. (Yonhap)
