Establishing World-Class Inland Port and Copper Raw Material Hub

On April 24, at the CCIE 2025 SMM (20th) Copper Industry Conference & Copper Industry Expo – Secondary Copper Industry Green Development Forum, hosted by SMM Information & Technology Co., Ltd., SMM Metal Trading Center, and Shandong Aisi Information Technology Co., Ltd., with Jiangxi Copper Corporation and Yingtan Land Port Holdings Co., Ltd. as the main sponsors, Shandong Humon Smelting Co., Ltd. as the special co-organizer, and Xinhuang Group and Zhongtiaoshan Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd. as co-organizers, Sun Jingfeng, Director of the Yingtan International Inland Port Management Office, shared insights on "Building a World-Class International Inland Port and Creating a Global Copper Raw Material Distribution Center."

I. Overview of Yingtan International Inland Port

Total planned area: 13.4 km², completed area: 1,164 mu, total investment: 2.2 billion yuan, core area: 554 mu.

"Six-in-One" Development Model

Focusing primarily on the copper industry, the international inland port is being developed with a "port relocation, on-site documentation, sea-rail intermodal transport, seamless connection" model. It aims to create an inland open platform for the Yingtan-Raozhou-Fuzhou-Changshan copper-based new material cluster, integrating import and export trade, processing, bonded services, spot copper delivery, and supply chain finance.

Yingtan International Inland Port Transportation and Storage Center

► Customs Supervision Operation Site

Officially launched on May 8, 2023, it primarily handles inspection and other functions for import and export business at the inland port. The project covers an area of over 80,000 m², with a designed throughput capacity of 20,000 TEUs per year and an inspection capacity of 10,000 TEUs per year. After its launch, the port and customs functions are effectively relocated inland, allowing enterprises to complete customs declarations and inspections "at their doorstep," achieving on-site supervision of import and export goods and completing all customs procedures in a "one-stop" manner. Currently, the supervision operation site is fully operated by Yingtan Customs.

► Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport

Currently, sea-rail intermodal train routes have been opened from Ningbo Beilun, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou Nansha to Yingtan International Inland Port, achieving seamless two-way connectivity with coastal ports. Import and export goods, including secondary copper, copper concentrates, copper cathode, aluminum ingots, fertilizers, copper products, and grains, can clear customs at Xiamen Port within 1.5 working days and complete round-trip rail transport to Ningbo Beilun Port in five days. To date, Yingtan International Inland Port has partnered with several internationally renowned shipping companies, such as COSCO Shipping, Maersk, MSC, ZIM, Yunda Shipping, Evergreen Marine, and PIL. Import shipping routes cover Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, achieving the initial goal of "buying globally."

► Bonded Warehouse

In 2024, the bonded warehouse completed an inbound cargo volume of 17,100 mt, with a bonded cargo value of 1.034 billion yuan, deferring VAT payments of 131 million yuan. In 2025, the bonded warehouse is expected to achieve an inbound volume of 50,000 mt, with a cargo value of 3 billion yuan. The bonded warehouse has attracted renowned domestic and international storage and logistics companies, such as Shanghai National Reserve Logistics and PGS Group, providing top-tier technical and team support for warehousing services.

► Overseas Warehouses

Thailand Warehouse: Alibaba Group, PGS Warehouse: LME South Africa Warehouse, Ningbo Zhenhai Warehouse: Lingang Intelligent Warehousing (Ningbo) Co., Ltd.

► Sea-Rail Intermodal Transport

Currently, sea-rail intermodal train routes have been opened from Ningbo Beilun, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou Nansha to Yingtan International Inland Port, achieving seamless two-way connectivity with coastal ports. Import and export goods, including secondary copper, copper concentrates, copper cathode, aluminum ingots, fertilizers, copper products, and grains, can clear customs at Xiamen Port within 1.5 working days and complete round-trip rail transport to Ningbo Beilun Port in five days.

► China-Europe Freight Train

On May 29, 2022, Yingtan International Inland Port officially launched and began operating the China-Europe freight train.

In April 2023, it was included as a scheduled station for the China-Europe freight train.

Yingtan Inland Port National Logistics Hub—In July 2023, it was included in the National Development and Reform Commission's list of inland port national logistics hub construction projects.

Central Region Nonferrous Metal Trading Center

► Formation of a Cluster of Copper Processing and Secondary Resource Utilization Enterprises

Officially launched on May 9, 2023, it has attracted 268 enterprises, including Xingqi Group, Yucheng Group, JCC Recycled Resources, and Changsheng Precious Metals.

► Central Region Nonferrous Metal Online Trading Platform

B2B trading platform: Includes information release, enterprise onboarding, online contract signing, online payment, guaranteed transactions, invoice management, and logistics delivery.

The online trading platform is developed by Alibaba's EWTP team in collaboration with Hainan Commodity Exchange to create a secondary copper trading channel, enabling the listing and trading of secondary copper (non-standard products).

Secondary Metal Spot Trading Center

Buyers and sellers can inspect goods on-site, conduct flexible transactions, and enjoy fast and convenient purchasing and sales services.

It meets the short-term storage, logistics, cargo yard, transaction negotiation, and trade office needs of copper processing enterprises.

A large modern warehouse of 50,000 m².

Secondary Metal Intelligent Inspection Platform

Under the General Administration of Customs' initiative to promote smart customs and the "Smart Customs, Strong Nation" action, the platform leverages the characteristics and challenges of inspecting and supervising imported secondary metal raw materials. It enhances the customs' intelligent supervision capabilities for metal raw materials, ensuring the smooth import of high-quality secondary metal resources and stabilizing the domestic metal raw material supply chain and industry chain.

By launching and operating the integrated platform for intelligent inspection and supervision of secondary metals, Yingtan International Inland Port has established a mature risk determination model, integrated data with the customs' main business system, and implemented risk grading under the "red-yellow-green zoning management" requirements. This optimizes inspection and supervision processes, improves the efficiency of inspecting and supervising imported secondary metal raw materials, and achieves precise and effective supervision under controllable safety risks. It promotes the standardization, precision, and intelligence of secondary metal raw material inspection and supervision, forming replicable and scalable best practices to ensure that secondary metal resource commodities are "well-managed, easily accessible, and quickly cleared."

Import Secondary Metal Transit

Starting in August 2024, the transit, transfer declaration, and operation of imported secondary metals at Ningbo Port will be fully digitized.

To date, the pilot program has imported a total of 117 TEUs of secondary copper, weighing approximately 2,925 mt, with a cargo value exceeding 222 million yuan.

► Achievements

Achievement 1: Reduced port detention time, effectively lowering financial costs for enterprises, enhancing the ability to ensure supply and stabilize prices for copper raw materials, and improving the copper industry supply chain.

Achievement 2: Reduced costs associated with round trips to ports, enabling buyers to immediately assess cargo quality and resolve trade disputes.

Achievement 3: Large trading groups introduced a centralized procurement model, bringing raw materials to Yingtan, helping enterprises procure first-hand sources and reducing procurement and capital occupation costs by 700-800 yuan per mt. Based on an annual import of 400,000 mt of copper raw materials, this could reduce overall costs by approximately 280 million yuan.

Achievement 4: Facilitated the formation of a "cargo aggregation" supply model locally, invigorated regional copper industry trade, and established a copper product distribution center and physical trading platform.

Nanchang Customs Copper Inspection Center Put into Operation

To better serve the inspection of copper raw materials and products, the Nanchang Customs Technical Inspection Center has established a copper raw material and product inspection laboratory at Yingtan International Inland Port. The laboratory, located in the office building of the customs supervision operation site at Yingtan International Inland Port, covers a total area of 1,500 m² and is equipped with over 60 sets of advanced inspection instruments. It provides technical support for "source + port + destination" full-chain intelligent inspection and supervision of imported secondary copper and copper concentrates within the customs district.

After its operation, the laboratory can provide inspection services for secondary copper, copper concentrates, various chemicals, and other products for enterprises in Yingtan and surrounding areas. It can effectively reduce the waiting time for inspection results by 3-4 days and save enterprises the costs of traveling to and from Nanchang. The Yingtan International Inland Port Customs Inspection Laboratory was put into use on December 12, 2024.