The Nansha area of the Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone is speeding up its development into an international shipping center, seeking to close the gap with Hong Kong in terms of cargo throughput and convenience of customs clearance.

Nansha Port is estimated to have handled 256 million metric tons of cargo between January and November this year with year-on-year growth of 11.96 percent, Li Zigen, deputy chief of the Nansha area of the Guangdong FTZ, said at a forum held in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

Altogether, 1,066 shipping logistics enterprises have been set up in Nansha since the free trade zone was established, Li added.

Nansha Port is increasing its throughput capacity by building new container terminals, with four 100,000-ton docks and two 70,000-ton docks completed. It has also opened up 13 new international routes, Li said.

Guangzhou is expected to handle as many containers as Hong Kong annually by 2020, said James Wang, associate professor with the department of geography at the University of Hong Kong.

"Nansha Port is taking business away from Hong Kong's Kwaitsing container terminals. For each additional container Nansha handles, it is one less for Kwaitsing," Wang said.

"However, we should consider Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shenzhen as a group that creates synergies to boost international shipment in the Pearl River Delta region rather than as three separate so-called international shipment centers," he said.

"The three cities have their own advantages in shipping. While Nansha Port has more routes to Africa and the Middle East, Hong Kong's foreign trade and logistics enterprises have better developed networks in Europe and the United States."

Hong Kong also has a better developed system for customs clearance than Guangzhou, Wang added.

To facilitate trade, Nansha Port has launched an online platform for cargo declarations that runs around the clock, increasing the efficiency of customs clearance by more than 50 percent, according to Li. The time for transfers of cargo has also been reduced from one or two days to between three and five hours.

Located in Guangzhou, which has been ranked first on the Forbes chart of the best commercial cities on the Chinese mainland for the past three years, Nansha has a tempting business environment, according to Caesar Wong, a partner at Deloitte China and a professional adviser for China's free trade zones.

"It benefits from the city's substantial foreign trade market, well-developed sea-air-land transportation system and complete industry chain that manufactures goods from ballpoint pens to drones," Wong said.

He advised Nansha to vigorously tap its cross-border e-commerce potential with South Korea and Australia, with which bilateral free trade agreements signed with China both came into effect on Dec 20.

Altogether, 550 cross-border e-commerce companies have registered with Nansha customs and the trade volume for cross-border e-commerce in Nansha this year is expected to surpass 2 billion yuan ($309 million), according to Li.

xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn