General

Recently, the General Administration of Customs held a regular press conference to introduce the relevant information on 16 measures to optimize the business environment. According to Wu Haiping, Director of the Comprehensive Business Department of the General Administration of Customs, currently, the annual supervision of import and export freight volume by customs in China has reached 4.8 billion tons, with 13 million inbound and outbound transportation vehicles (planes, ships). In order to further stabilize social expectations, boost confidence in foreign trade development, and create a market-oriented, legal, and international first-class business environment, the General Administration of Customs has focused on the concerns of enterprises and has also studied and launched new measures. From a content perspective, these 16 measures can be summarized as "four promotions":

One is to promote smooth import and export logistics. Expand the pilot scope of facilitation measures such as "ship side direct lifting", "arrival direct loading", and "linkage unloading", ensure the smooth operation of the green channel for local inspection of fresh and perishable goods, optimize the supervision and inspection process of high-tech equipment, accelerate the quarantine and access of important agricultural products, implement fast inspection and release of imported crude oil, accelerate the inspection and release of bulk resource commodities such as coal and cement, and continuously improve cross-border logistics efficiency. These measures have only one purpose, which is to ensure fast entry and exit of goods.

The second is to promote cross-border trade facilitation. Deepen the construction of a "single window" for international trade and expand more convenient functions and services; Carry out "smart port" construction pilot at qualified ports, implement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in high quality, make the service free trade agreement more effective, and further promote trade liberalization and facilitation.

The third is to promote enterprise burden reduction and efficiency improvement. In terms of reducing burden, further facilitate the handling of export tax refunds by enterprises; Further expand the scope of active disclosure policies and provide enterprises with convenient channels for fault tolerance, error correction, and compliance with the law. In terms of efficiency enhancement, increase efforts to cultivate the credit of "specialized, refined, and innovative" enterprises; Continue to expand the scope of mutual recognition among customs' certified operators (AEO), and promote AEO enterprises to enjoy customs clearance convenience both domestically and internationally; Provide technical trade measures consulting services and actively assist enterprises in dealing with unreasonable trade barriers; Strengthen customs protection of independent brand intellectual property rights and help enterprises expand into the international market; Strengthen monitoring of key commodity imports and exports, and provide digital statistical services for enterprises.

Fourth, promote the innovative development of foreign trade. Accelerate the comprehensive reform of the comprehensive bonded zone, continuously improve policies, expand functions, simplify procedures, and optimize services; Innovate the customs supervision mechanism and promote the upgrading of processing trade; Promoting the innovative development of Border trade; Carry out comprehensive reform of cross-border e-commerce customs supervision in an orderly manner, and promote the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce; Expand the scope of bonded maintenance business and support the continuous development of new bonded maintenance formats.

Taking cross-border e-commerce as an example, it has shown vigorous development and vitality in recent years, growing from a seedling to a towering tree, which is closely related to the environment of service innovation and support for innovation. "Lin Shaobin, Deputy Director of the Comprehensive Business Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that in response to the trends and characteristics of cross-border e-commerce development, the General Administration of Customs has introduced a customs clearance management system different from traditional trade, effectively promoting the healthy and sustainable development of cross-border e-commerce. Among the 16 measures launched by the customs this time, creating a good innovation environment and serving foreign trade innovation occupy an important position. For example, in response to the problem of difficult returns for enterprises, we will optimize measures for cross-border e-commerce product import and export returns, improve and upgrade the functions of return center warehouses, pilot cross-border e-commerce online shopping, bonded retail, and import cross customs return models, and study and expand the pilot of cross-border e-commerce general export product cross customs return.

The General Administration of Customs stated that it will focus on the implementation and implementation of the 16 articles. On the one hand, it requires the national customs to introduce detailed supporting measures tailored to local conditions, conduct in-depth investigation and research, respond to enterprise demands in a timely manner, and strengthen the synergistic effect of policy measures. On the other hand, we will consolidate and deepen the service of "customs officers delivering policies to the doorstep", deepen the delivery of policies, listen to opinions, and solve difficult problems for enterprises, strengthen the promotion of policy measures, and address the practical difficulties faced by enterprises in a targeted manner. We will also strengthen feedback on the implementation of policy measures, requiring national customs to provide timely feedback on important situations in implementation, ensuring that policy measures are implemented and giving enterprises a more tangible sense of gain, "Wu Haiping said. (Translated from: People's Daily Overseas Edition)