China has approved the establishment of a bonded area in southwestern Chongqing Municipality in an effort to boost the opening and development of central and western regions.

Chongqing Vice Mayor Huang Qifan said Tuesday at a press conference here that the first inland bonded area had been approved by the State Council, or the Cabinet.

The 8.37-sq km Cuntan Bonded Area centers both the Cuntan Harbor and the Jiangbei International Airport. The bonded area will be completed in 2015.

“The Cuntan Bonded Area will be built into a multi-functional area with most advanced logistics and preferential policies,” Huang said. “It will also become an accelerator for the opening upof central and eastern inland cities.”

The Chongqing Bonded Area Development Company and the area’s administration commission will start operation on Thursday. Huang did not reveal the investment for the bonded area or its operation time.

Bao Zichuan, chairman of the company, said the bonded area will focus on harbor business, air transport, foreign trade, export-oriented processing and commodity displays.

Enterprises in the bonded area will enjoy such preferential policies as tax rebates for exports and free tax for trading within the area.

So far, China has established ten such free trade zones in the coastal areas from north to south.

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China has so far this year recorded a surge of 72.8 percent in its export despite the spreading global financial crisis, the regional foreign trade and economic cooperation bureau said on Thursday.

The volume of Xinjiang’s export during the period reached 17.69billion U.S. dollars, while its import increased by 36.7 percent to 2.82 billion dollars, the department said.

With the remarkable export and import volume, the region replaced Sichuan Province to become the bellwether of foreign trade in China’s vast western region.

Huang Pingzhao, a leading analyst of the bureau, attributed the export surge to the Mid Asian market, which accounts for more than80 percent Xinjiang’s exports and is not so badly impacted in the global financial crisis as the European, American and Japanese markets.

Besides, most of Xinjiang’s exports were consumer goods. “The market demand in Mid Asia for consumer goods was rigid,” Huang added.

The analyst said more Chinese domestic companies were expected to expand their exports to Mid Asia via Xinjiang next year, bringing an even more promising future for the region.