Approved by the State Council in 1990,the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone was one of the earliest and largest free trade zones in China. The free trade zone integrates multiple economic functions, such as international trade, export processing, logistics, cargo forwarding and duty-suspended commodity exhibition etc. It locates at the northeast corner of the Shanghai Pudong New Area and next to the mouth of the Yangtze River. It lies at the intersection of China’s eastern coastline and the golden waterway. The planned area of the zone is around 10 square kilometers and an area of 8.5 square kilometers is ready. Constructive area of 2.76 million m2 of factory buildings and 2.57 million m2 with basically complete facilities have been finished in the zone. 5,712 enterprises from 72 countries and regions of the world have already entered the free trade zone, including 85 multi-national corporations of the Fortune Top 500.

　　The Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone positively promoted system innovation in 2003, insisting on "going first and trying first", expanding strength in inviting and attracting investment, strengthening comprehensive competitive power in the bonded area, optimizing comprehensive investment environment, reducing enterprise’s operation costs, deepening functional development, as well as making new progress in the development of the three major functions of international trade, export processing and logistics service, which make the comprehensive economy of the bonded area keep fast , healthy , lasting growth, and make the average annual increasing degree of the main economic indexes above 20%. The bonded area has already become an important part to promote the development of a new round of economy of the whole city and the Pudong New District.