Located in Wenquan Town, Haidian District, the Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone has a planned area of 0.4 square kilometers and an industrial space of 660,000 square meters. On April 26 this year, it passed the official inspection and acceptance by a joint acceptance team composed of seven ministries and commissions including the General Administration of Customs. As China's first comprehensive bonded zone characterized by R&D innovation and with bonded R&D as its core function, it boasts four distinctive strengths.
First, policy advantages. The zone provides "certainty" for enterprises operating within it. As a special customs supervision area, enterprises can leverage the zone's bonded and trade facilitation policies to "reduce costs, simplify procedures, and save time".
In terms of cost reduction, enterprises benefit from tax policies including "duty exemption for research and development equipment, bonded treatment for research and development materials, and export tax rebates for goods entering the zone". On average, they enjoy a tariff reduction of seven percent and a VAT exemption of thirteen percent. In November last year, the Haidian District Commerce Bureau issued the Several Measures for Promoting High-Quality Development of Foreign Trade in Haidian District. Article 3 encourages the development of new forms and models of foreign trade such as bonded research and development, bonded maintenance, bonded leasing, and bonded display and trading, with financial support of up to 5,000,000 yuan per enterprise. Article 4 supports international qualification certification. In addition to municipal support, an additional 30 percent of certification costs will be subsidized, up to 100,000 yuan per project.
As for simplified procedures, except as otherwise stipulated by laws and regulations, imported goods for R&D and display in the zone are exempt from license submission, with registration and filing procedures streamlined. Free cross-border settlement in domestic and foreign currencies is allowed.
To save procedure time, two divisions of Zhongguancun Customs are stationed inside the zone, providing "customs at the doorstep" for rapid response and "one-click acceleration" for qualification applications. Customs clearance efficiency for non-high-risk research and development supplies is over 50 percent higher than outside the zone.
Also, the zone unlocks "potential" for enterprises. It enjoys the unique advantage of "four overlapping strategic zones": the China(Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Integrated National Demonstration Zone for Opening up the Services Sector, the Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone, and the Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone. This has formed a hub of opening up where pilot policies are tested first. Based on the actual needs of enterprises, the zone continuously promotes policy innovation and improves institutional supply, providing solid support for their innovative development.
Second, geographical advantages. Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone is situated along the Beiqing Road Frontier Sci-Tech Innovation Corridor, the main development axis of northern Haidian District. Home to national laboratories, new-type research and development institutions represented by the Graphene Institute, as well as leading tech enterprises including Huawei North Research Institute and Loongson Technology, it enjoys a strong industrial cluster and a vibrant innovation ecosystem. Focusing on strategic emerging industries and future industries, the zone has built a "2+2+N" bonded business portfolio, with integrated circuits and medical & healthcare as core sectors, artificial intelligence and technology services as key areas, and numerous new types of trade and service formats such as financial leasing, cross-border e-commerce, and high-end software service outsourcing as extensions. It is committed to becoming a model sci-tech innovation-oriented comprehensive bonded zone in China.
Third, space advantages. Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone has a planned area of 0.4 square kilometers, with a total construction scale of approximately 940,000 square meters. At present, the first phase of industrial space used as the Innovative and Research Main Building, covering 100,000 square meters, has been put into use. 90 percent of the space is specially designed for hard tech research and development, featuring high ceiling height and high load-bearing standards, which perfectly meet the requirements of precision equipment in sectors such as integrated circuits and biomedicine. In the meantime, it is equipped with standardized pilot and pre-commercial test platforms, providing flexible and customizable space solutions to fully support the transformation of innovations from the laboratory to industrialization.
Fourth, service advantages. In terms of hard infrastructure construction, the zone focuses on building "three major professional functional platforms" to provide targeted services for scientific and technological innovation. The Industrial Generic Technology Platform, focusing on key sectors including integrated circuits, has built a hardware acceleration simulation and testing platform to promote equipment sharing and industry-university-research collaboration. Meanwhile, generic technology platforms for biomedicine and other fields are under preparation to further facilitate the sharing of innovation resources. The Ultra-Clean Inspection Platform provides a professional class 1000/class 10000 clean environment for the integrated circuit and high-end testing industries, ensuring zero pollution during customs clearance for highly sensitive materials such as wafers and chips. The Special Articles Inspection Platform is equipped with -80℃ deep-cooling storage facilities, catering to biomedical enterprises, supporting the safe inspection and temporary storage of biological samples and special reagents. This platform strictly safeguards biosafety, improves customs clearance efficiency, and helps enterprises cut costs and enhance efficiency in "importing relevant materials".
In terms of soft services, an innovative "1+5+N" Sci-Tech Innovation Global Navigation Service System has been launched, encompassing "1" core platform, "5" acceleration services, and "N" overseas stations. The core platform is a one-stop service center integrating online and offline services. Online, it relies on an "intelligent customs + tax AI agent" system to provide information inquiry and intelligent policy matching. Offline, experts from customs, taxation, government affairs, finance, intellectual property rights and professional institutions are stationed on-site to provide face-to-face services. The "5" acceleration services can precisely help enterprises find policies, services, information, capital and partners by integrating the Beijing Municipal "Belt and Road" Through Train Comprehensive Service Platform and Haidian's global outreach resources, we provide a "global expansion service package" covering international certification and market promotion. The "N" overseas stations rely on overseas bridges such as the Zhongguancun Science City–Hong Kong Innovation Accelerator to help enterprises accelerate integration into the global market and carry out international cooperative R&D and matchmaking, enabling them to "go global" with greater confidence and broader market access.
It is the mission of Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone to serve national strategies and empower scientific and technological innovation. We sincerely invite friends from all walks of life to visit Haidian District and settle in the zone. We look forward to helping you reduce costs, expand markets, and achieve smooth connectivity with the zone's strengths as a highland for innovative policies, a hub for industrial ecological clusters and a one-stop service center. Let us join hands to share opening-up opportunities and win a bright future together!
