Shanghai will form a free trade port area to help deepen reform of its pilot Free Trade Zone and actively serve the Belt and Road Initiative, official sources said.

"The establishment of the free trade port area is mainly an institutional innovation, and we will study a set of new supervision systems that both conform to China's reality and reach international standards to materialize the free trade port area in the city," said Zhu Min, deputy director of Shanghai municipal Development and Reform Commission.

The State Council published a plan on Friday calling for deepening the opening up of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. The Ministry of Commerce also announced the launch of another seven free trade zones to accelerate the nation's opening-up and boost the Belt and Road Initiative.

The move takes the nation's total number of FTZs to 11.

"Related divisions and government departments will try their best to develop the full plan for the free trade port area within this year," Zhu added.

As China's first FTZ, the Shanghai pilot FTZ, unveiled in September 2013, has formed a new operation mode and gained experience that will inform the other FTZs' development.

There were 42,000 enterprises established in the Shanghai pilot FTZ by the end of 2016, exceeding the total amount of companies registered in the previous two decades, Zhu said.