Port Customs Clearance Facilitation Greatly Relieves the Burdens of Enterprises

written by Lin Han, translated by Xu Zhiliang

Port Customs Clearance Facilitation Greatly Relieves the Burdens of Enterprises

written by Lin Han, translated by Xu Zhiliang

Both time and efficiency mean money for the market and enterprises.

Since the implementation of customs clearance integration in Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone (GBGEZ), a lot of costs of enterprises have been saved and their burdens relieved over the past two years of reform and innovation of simplifying the procedure of customs clearance and accelerating the speed. Enterprises benefiting from the customs clearance facilitation spoke in support of this measure one after another.

How to simplify the procedure of customs clearance and accelerate the speed? Obscure phrases like “Port Logistics Linkage System”, “Three Ones” and “Single Window” are becoming the key to this question and enterprises’ access to wealth.

Logistics linkage system: a magic weapon for six cities and one pass

According to Director of the Division of Port Administration Office of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Li Jianliang, Guangxi electronic port logistics linkage system in Nanning customs areas passed the assessment and inspection of experts on June 4, 2015, and it was comprehensively generalized and applied in the region. The operation of the port logistics linkage system marks the substantive progress made by the implementation of customs clearance integration in GBGEZ.

“Although the port logistics linkage system is invisible, facilitation has been truly brought about,” said Mr. Li. Clearance logistics information about the systems of all supervision places and customs passes as well as the flow of cargo inventory are connected to the network in real time, which has further increased the working performance of inbound and outbound means of transportation and accelerated the speed of inspecting and releasing imported and exported cargoes. “Specifically, enterprises needn’t make round trips between the docks and the customs to hand over paper documents, saving ships' working time for at least half an hour; more than half an hour processing the procedure for picking up and loading the cargoes has been saved by permitting electronic data instead of paper documents,” Mr. Li explained.

Mr. Fan Dongming, who is a design analyst of the logistics linkage system, described the remarkable function of the logistics linkage system. “Data sharing relating to customs brokers and joint inspection departments can be achieved by the logistics linkage system. Once the data are shared, the data circulation of customs clearance, such as freight forwarding, shipping agency, port administrative affairs will be maximized. In other words, after one cabin document being typed, other relevant departments relating to freight forwarding, customs clearance and ship agency can type their relevant data. Now, it takes only two minutes for all relevant departments to complete one cabin document while it took at least half a day in the past.”

The application of the logistics linkage system has greatly improved the situation that enterprises conducted customs clearance supervision procedures on cargoes through frequent round trips between various departments such as dock, shipper and customs. Interms of the enterprises’ burdens relieved by the logistics linkage system, the Chief Operating Officer of Guangxi Jet-Trans International Logistics Co., Ltd. Yan Bin said, with deep feelings, “The time from when inbound ships anchor the dock to going through the discharging procedures was cut down to half an hour while it had taken two or three hours in the past, and two and a half hours were reduced on average. Moreover, the procedures can be handled at home nowadays, saving the time for at most eight or nine round trips (two or three hours each round trip). As for enterprises, it is useful for us to save the time, accelerate the efficiency and lower the human costs, which is evident.”

The “Three Ones” reform saves the costs of enterprises

On November 11, 2014, the “Three Ones” reform by Guangxi customs and frontier inspection organs was launched in Fangchenggang Port and Pingxiang Port at the same time. In December 2014, the“Three Ones” model for customs clearance was comprehensively carried out in all supervision places in Guangxi. Over the past more half a year of implementing the“Three Ones” reform, enterprises have conducted thousands of businesses via the one-time declaration system, and the actual application effects have been gradually visible. Now, the number of processed businesses via the “One-time Declaration” system adds up to 4,000, and more than 70 declaration items have been reduced, decreasing by 45 percent of enterprises’ workload. In addition, over 200 “One-time Inspection” businesses have been conducted, and the inspected cargoes include fruits, furniture, wine, waste hardware products, etc.

Lin Wenfeng, Customs Clearance and Inspection Department Manager of SINOTRANS GUANGXI FANGCHENG CO., is deeply impressed by the reform of “Three Ones”. In the interview, he figured out the preparatory work on customs clearance before adopting the unified declaration platform for electronic port customs clearance in Guangxi: first of all, the enterprise should submit its report of arrival to the Port Office. Then, the data will be sent to the customs after being confirmed. The declaration of the report of arrival is completed; secondly, hand over the typed booking note to the shipping agency; finally, declare to the customs. “It was very inconvenient for enterprises to complete the preparatory work on declaration due to the waste of lots of energy in round trips,” Mr. Lin said,“with the implementation of the reform of‘Three Ones’ in combination with other reform items such as electronic customs delivery, electronic declaration on ships from abroad and electronic approval process of logistics, the informationbased operation process makes the time to complete the preparatory work cut down from three or four hours to two minutes. Moreover, accuracy has been greatly improved while promoting the efficiency.”

Mr. Yang Bin also indicated that, for example, in the inspection and permission for delivery, the customs department and the commodity inspection department respectively checked and examined the cargoes and the container was lifted each time when it cost 100-150 yuan. According to Mr. Yang, his company, which delivers about 800 containers one year, is mainly engaged in bulk and general cargoes. Dozens of containers are inspected each time. Although the quantity is comparatively less than other large-scale enterprises, the saved cost is evident.

Single window: no round trips between departments

According to Mr. Li Jianliang, on the basis of “Three Ones”, departments involving maritime affairs, frontier inspection and transport were incorporated into the reform, so as to further optimize the ports’ work on supervision, law enforcement as well as customs clearance, and ensure the one-time declaration on imported and exported cargoes as well as the joint inspection and permission of inbound and outbound means of transport, steadfastly accelerating the building of“single window”.

An official of Fangchenggang Customs said that, before implementing the customs clearance facilitation, for instance, an enterprise in Nanning, which is to import a batch of slippers from Vietnam via the Fangchenggang Port, had to come to Fangchenggang City to deliver the declaration report to the Fangchenggang Customs and other joint inspection departments. If permitted, cargoes will be transported to Nanning. However, the owner of this enterprise can declare online in Nanning through the logistics linkage system in accordance with the attribution conditions. After the declaration reports being confirmed, the cargoes can be delivered through the customs by the logistics company to Nanning, thereby circulating in the market. The logistic linkage system has substantially simplified the procedures through the integration, and the burdens of enterprises have been relieved, winning acclaims from the enterprises. “The city integration policy saves the time to travel among cities while the single window avoids the round trips between departments.”No one is in charge of the sentry box at the east entrance of Fangchenggang freight yard now; however, fully laden trucks stamping cards pass through it in an orderly way. It actually lies behind a very small card—Fangchenggang Port Vehicle Carnet which provides one-stop service for the cargo transportation and logistics. According to Mr. Li, the time to pass through each customs pass in all supervision places has been cut down from 15-45 seconds to about 6 seconds, and the passing rate of vehicles at the peak has been doubled.

Regional and international customs clearance linked to more development opportunities

Moreover, positive progress has been made in the cooperation on regional customs clearance. Li Jianliang said that Guangxi had officially been integrated into the reform range of customs clearance integration in Pan-PRD four provinces. Since May 1, 2015, Guangxi has officially been incorporated into the reform range of regional customs clearance integration in Guangdong customs. Eleven customs passes in Pan-PRD four provinces are just like one when processing the customs clearance, because multiple and complicated procedures relating to customs clearance have been cancelled, which has further facilitated the rapid customs clearance of enterprises in the four provinces’ customs passes and lowered the cost of logistics. With regard to the cooperation on regional customs clearance, Li Jianliang revealed that Guangxi had also been proactively boosting its cooperation with ports in South Central China and Southwest China, exploring the cooperation and connection mechanisms for regional customs clearance, aiming at linking customs clearance facilitation in Guangxi with the outside through regional linkage to bring more convenience to enterprises.

At the same time, in order to serve the Belt and Road Initiative and the construction of the upgraded version of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and adapt to the trade and investment facilitation between Guangxi (China) and ASEAN countries in the new trends, Guangxi has initiatively proposed to explore and advance the customs clearance facilitation cooperation between China and ASEAN countries on “Two Countries, One Inspection”, and drawn up the relevant feasibility study report. ASEAN countries have been actively in response to the customs clearance model “Two Countries, One Inspection”. In particular, China and Malaysia have much consensus on this model, which has won benefits from the cooperation model “Two Countries, Twin Parks”between China and Malaysia. China and Vietnam have also made substantive progress in implementing “Two Countries, One Inspection” due to the geographical advantages and constantly enlarged trade contacts between the two sides. It is worth mentioning that China and Vietnam agreed on building the Friendship Pass into the first pilot port for new-type customs clearance facilitation on the border between China and Vietnam.