Beijing free-trade zone may move Alaska fish

PACT: It would bring Chinese goods through the state and send seafood over.

Daily News staff
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An Anchorage development agency has signed an agreement with owners of a Chinese free-trade zone intended to help jump-start an increase in cargo traffic between Alaska and Beijing.

Bob Poe, chief executive of the Anchorage Economic Development Corp., said he signed a memorandum of understanding with the company that owns a private free-trade zone next to the new Beijing Capital Airport.

The Beijing Liqiao Bonded Logistics Development Corp. promises to work with the AEDC to try to create a cargo-trade arrangement that according to Poe would work like this:

Chilled Alaska salmon, cod, halibut and other seafood would fly to the Beijing free-trade zone, where they could be processed before being frozen for shipment to markets or sold fresh. This would raise the value of the Alaska seafood because at worst it would be frozen only once, unlike some of Alaska's catch that now is frozen for shipment to Asian processors, thawed and processed, then frozen again.

In return, the Chinese could export products by air to Anchorage, where the products would be transferred to container ships now sailing mostly empty from Anchorage to Tacoma. This would shorten the shipping time for some products, such as fruits that otherwise take a long time to ship by sea or move by expensive air cargo all the way to the Lower 48.

Poe noted that the agreement is nonbinding, meaning the trade arrangement could never develop. The next step is to study how feasible the idea is, he said. A delegation from China will visit Anchorage in March and the agenda will include discussion of who should do the study.

Poe said the agreement had "all the weaknesses" any of its kind usually has. But it also moves the city closer than it's ever been to achieving a trade arrangement many have sought for a long time, he said.

The AEDC gets public and private money to promote Anchorage as a good place to do business.