Imported cars at the Ningbo Meishan Free Trade Port Area in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province [Photo/WeChat account: nbfb0574] 

Ningbo Meishan Free Trade Port Area recently recorded a total import value of vehicles of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion), according to Meishan Customs.

As of April 29, the port had imported a total of 28,867 cars worth 10.02 billion yuan.

"It took only 22 months for the port's vehicle imports to reach 1 billion yuan from zero, and as short as three months to jump from 9 billion yuan to 10 billion yuan," said Zhang Zirui, a local customs official. 

As the sole vehicle import port in Zhejiang province, the port started the business in December 2013.

Since the city was set as a comprehensive experimental zone for the Belt and Road Initiative in September 2017, imported cars from countries and regions involved in the initiative has become a new growth point for the port's vehicle import.

The port imported a total of 12,109 cars from these countries from January 2018 to March 2019, with a total value of 3.37 billion yuan.

Thanks to a series of measures facilitating customs clearance in recent years, the port saw a 75 percent cut of time in the customs clearance for vehicle imports.