Workers unload merchandise from a Hong Kong Airlines flight that landed at Haikou, capital of South China’s Hainan Province on Tuesday – the airline’s first cargo link between Hong Kong and Haikou. The plane carried display items to be shown at the first China International Consumer Products Expo, which is scheduled for May 7 to 10, as well as duty-free goods and cross-border e-commerce merchandise. The weekly cargo service will use a wide-body Airbus. Photo: VCG

 

A cargo flight from Jakarta, capital of Indonesia to Haikou, South China's Hainan Province, stopping over at Singapore under the fifth freedom traffic right - which allows an airline to carry traffic from its home country to a second country before reaching a third country - officially opened on Sunday. 

It marked the first time that an all-cargo route under the fifth freedom traffic right is operated in the Hainan free trade port amid its globalization push.    

The opening will further bolster Hainan's integration into the Southeast Asian cargo aviation route network, injecting new dynamics into the building of the tropical island into a world-class free trade port, observers said. It is also an embodiment of China's dual-circulation strategy, which emphasizes markets both at home and abroad, to tackle rising external uncertainties.

The Jakarta-Singapore-Haikou air cargo route was jointly launched by an Indonesian airline and Alibaba's logistics arm Cainiao. The flight, using a B737-499, will leave Jakarta every Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. It will stop at Singapore and land at Haikou Meilan International Airport the next day.

The flight, using Haikou as a cargo distribution center, carried commodities from Singapore and Indonesia, which will build a convenient "air bridge" for economic and trade flows among the three Asian economies.

The fifth freedom traffic right, known as the "most abundant air right and with the most economic significance," is one of the important channels through which an airline expands its international routes and develops a global market.

So far, Meilan airport has opened a total of seven international and regional cargo routes serving Russia, Germany, South Korea, France, Indonesia, Singapore and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Last year, Chinese authorities released a master plan to build Hainan into a globally influential high-level free trade port by the middle of the century. A free trade port system focusing on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation will be "basically established" in Hainan by 2025 and become "more mature" by 2035, according to the plan.

In April, Chinese officials said that the country would soon announce a series of policy measures for Hainan, including a reduced negative list for cross-border trade in services, aiming to further open up a wide range of sectors for foreign firms, including energy, food, electronics and machinery.