Considering Shanghai is the world’s busiest container port and China is the world’s largest producer of containerized goods, it’s remarkable that the country’s announcement in September of a new free trade zone in the port city made relatively little splash.
The proposed FTZ had been a long time coming, with the shipping, banking, and insurance industries among those looking to tap its benefits. Economic analysts have envisioned the Shanghai FTZ as signaling a new, more liberalized era for China’s economy, with a potential impact as large as the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone had on the country when it opened three decades ago.
Waiting for impact
