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| Developing China’s Ports
The first was approved in Shanghai in 2013. Three more free trade zones were approved in 2015 and another seven in 2017, followed by one in 2018, six in 2019, and three in 2020. Each of the twenty-one zones is named for the province or municipality where it is located. In addition to the SEZs created by the central government, many prefecture-level and county-level development zones have been established since the 1990s. In 2019, China had 219 national ETDZs, 169 national high-technology industrial development zones, 17 national border economic cooperation zones, 63 national export-processing zones, 66 bonded zones, 21 national free trade zones (as of 2020), and more than 1,000 provincial SEZs. The numbers continue to grow. There have been three generations of SEZs since 1980. As noted, the first generation consisted of the four formed in 1980 in Shantou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Zhuhai. These zones encompassed large areas within which the objective was to pursue pragmatic and open economic policies, serving as a testing ground for innovative policies that, if proven effective, would be implemented more widely across the country. The emphasis on forward links with the world, especially through liberalization of foreign investment and trade with c apitalist countries, and backward links with other parts of China was part of the rationale for their establishment. The four SEZs created in 1980 are similar in legal structure to ETDZs, the difference being one of scale (Zeng 2012). The comprehensive SEZs span an entire city or province. From 1984 to 1988, 14 ETDZs were established in coastal cities, and later in cities in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Min Delta in Fujian. In 1988, the entire province of Hainan was designated as the fifth comprehensive SEZ. In 1992, the government opened 11 border cities and 6 ports along the Yangtze River. Map 2.1 shows the development of the first generation of SEZs. MAP 2.1
The first generation of special economic zones in China, 1980–92
Source: World Bank 2009, 254.
