BEIJING, March 21 -- Hunchun, an open border city in Northeast China's Jilin Province, will begin building a free trade road and port zone with Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) respectively this year, according to sources with the Jilin Provincial Development Zone Department.

    "It means facilities such as ports and roads in the two zones will be free of the conventional supervision from customs," said Xu Long, deputy director of Hunchun Border Economic Co-operation Zone.

    In addition, the commodities in the two zones will be exempt from import and export taxes.

    Hunchun lies at the lower reaches of the Tumen River, which is in the southeast of Jilin Province. It is at the juncture of China, DPRK and Russia.

    Hunchun is bounded on its southeast with Russia's coastal region, while Hunchun Port is connected with the Russian highway. On its southwest, Hunchun borders the DPRK, with the Tumen River as its boundary.

    Statistics show that two neighbouring big ports Rajin in the DPRK and Zarubino in Russia have annual spare throughput capacities of 4 million tons.

    "The transportation throughput of Jilin Province was 50 million tons last year," said Zhu Yehui, director of Tumen River Area Development Administration.

    "Thus Jilin and the entire Northeast China could benefit a lot from the establishment of the road and port zones."

    Making use of the sea route would enlarge the domestic market of Jilin, but also create a short cut for the entire Northeast China to the outside world such as the Republic of Korea, Japan, Canada, the United States and some European countries, Zhu added.

    With a population of 250,000, Hunchun officially became an open border city in 1992 when the State Council approved setting up Hunchun Border Economic Co-operation Zone.

(Source: China Daily)