General

Customs data shows that Hubei Huangshi is racing against the clock to speed up foreign trade!

In the "document review system" of Hubei Huangshi Customs, a recent customs declaration was opened at random. From 14:28:38, electronic declaration was made. After three links of computer document review, tax calculation and on-site receipt, "the document was released normally" was displayed at 14:30:36. It takes less than two minutes from declaration to release.

"As soon as the goods arrive at the port, they will be shipped immediately." Xu Yiping, Deputy Commissioner of Huangshi Customs, sighed that this "almost impossible" scenario in the past is now staged in Huangshi New Port every day through high-tech means.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward that we must fully, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, adhere to the reform direction of the socialist market economy, adhere to the high-level opening up, and accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with the domestic big cycle as the main body and the domestic and international double cycles promoting each other.

Huangshi City, Hubei Province, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, is a traditional manufacturing base where pillar industries such as ore, steel, cement, etc. "enter and export in a big way". How can we ensure that imports and exports go faster, smoother and more convenient? In recent years, Huangshi Customs has introduced a series of innovative measures to continuously reduce customs clearance time, reduce enterprise production costs, continuously optimize the port business environment, and promote the stability and quality of local foreign trade.

In the opinion of Zhu Guilin, vice general manager of Hubei Zhenhua Chemical Co., Ltd., customs clearance accelerated, "it is a real burden reduction for enterprises".

Under the traditional supervision mode, the chromium salt production enterprise in which Zhu Guilin is a member can only take the imported chromium concentrate out of the port after on-site inspection, sampling inspection, assessment and issuance of certificates. Zhu Guilin remembered that previously, according to the traffic regulations, the goods had to be stored in the warehouse of the port to wait for inspection, which greatly affected the logistics efficiency.

After the reform of Huangshi Customs was launched, the declaration procedures were integrated, the declaration elements and supervision certificates were simplified, and the submission and review of all kinds of certificates were released in seconds; For iron ore, chromium ore and its concentrate and other bulk resource metal ore products, the policy of "release before inspection" is implemented.

This has brought direct benefits to enterprises like Zhenhua Company: the customs clearance and inspection of imported ores have been changed from "serial" to "parallel", and the average customs clearance time has been reduced by 6-7 days. "It not only saves time, but also reduces the logistics cost significantly," said Zhu Guilin.

The latest customs data provided by Huangshi Customs Inspection Section shows that through continuous simplification of customs clearance process, the time for import customs clearance in the city has been reduced by more than 80% and that for export customs clearance by more than 90% compared with 5 years ago. "We will further simplify the process and reduce the customs clearance time by 20%," Zeng Fan, deputy chief of Huangshi Customs Inspection Section, said.

In the field of import and export in the world, AEO is the operator certified by the customs. It meets the customs certification standards in terms of internal control, financial status, compliance with laws and regulations and trade security. It will become the enterprise with the highest credit rating of the customs and can obtain the most favorable customs clearance facilities. These facilities include giving priority to document review, and the designated customs coordinator is responsible for timely communication and enjoys a low inspection rate. This means that the import and export goods of enterprises can have a higher logistics efficiency, thus further improving the market competitiveness.

The standard of enterprises with advanced certification by the customs is relatively high. In order to make the enterprises under its jurisdiction meet the relevant standards, Huangshi Customs has carried out one-to-one credit cultivation for enterprises to help them improve their internal control in accordance with the relevant certification standards.

After five months of comprehensive training, Zhenhua passed the AEO certification in January 2022. "Now the company's overall process is standardized, all records are traceable, and the overall reliability has also been improved." Zhu Guilin introduced.

According to customs data, there are now 15 enterprises in Huangshi that have obtained AEO senior certification. "More and more countries and regions have been recognized with the AEO of China Customs, which is very helpful for enterprises to develop overseas customers," said Li Jie, manager of the foreign trade department of Hubei Xinye Steel Co., Ltd.

"To implement the new development concept, we need to constantly update our knowledge base in addition to doing a good job in the inspection and quarantine of import and export products." After more than 10 years of inspection work in Huangshi Customs, He Xiaojie, born in the 1980s, has formed a set of his own "customs clearance treasures".

At ordinary times, He Xiaojie will pay special attention to the latest market trends in order to deal with possible problems at any time. Through regular communication with enterprises, he divided the products into food, agricultural products, animal processing products and plant products, and established a case base under each category to constantly supplement and improve. Whenever an enterprise encounters development difficulties, He Xiaojie, based on his case base and in combination with the recent market environment, can often quickly determine what is wrong, and then provide measures and suggestions.

Huanggang City across the river from Huangshi is also under the jurisdiction of Huangshi Customs. Huanggang is located at the southern foot of the Dabie Mountains and is an old revolutionary base area. The characteristic agricultural products represented by Luotian Chestnut are sold to the domestic and foreign markets. How to help the featured agricultural products increase their competitiveness in overseas markets and drive the economic development of the old area?

Hubei Jiajia Food Co., Ltd. once encountered a development bottleneck: the company has been exporting frozen diced Chinese chestnut to South Korea for a long time. Although the sales volume is stable, as a primary processed agricultural product, the added value is not high. In order to seek a way out, Chen Zhe, the general manager of the company, wants to upgrade and develop new products, increase added value, and consult Huangshi Customs about relevant export requirements.

Staff of Huangshi Customs immediately came to visit Chen Zhe for in-depth communication. After comparison, they found that canned Chinese chestnut has higher added value and greater market potential than diced Chinese chestnut. Accordingly, Huangshi Customs, based on the characteristics of the products, helped many Chinese chestnut enterprises in Luotian County, including Jiajia Company, to establish a management system that meets the requirements for export food safety in terms of raw and auxiliary materials acceptance, workshop hygiene requirements, toxic and harmful substances and pest prevention and control, and finished product management.

Since 2022, on the basis of quick frozen chestnut kernel, Jiajia Company has newly developed canned chestnut chicken soup, chestnut beverage and other deep-processing products, which has ushered in new opportunities for development.

Recently, Chen Zhe also brought good news to Huangshi Customs: on the basis of maintaining the original market share, the company's product exports have moved the markets of Türkiye, Belgium, Azerbaijan and other countries, "It is estimated that the export volume in 2022 will increase by 20% over the previous year".

With many measures in parallel, Huangshi's foreign trade scale continues to rank among the top in the province. The latest customs data shows that in the first three quarters of 2022, Huangshi City completed a total import and export of 32.52 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.3%. The customs data showed that the export was 16.62 billion yuan, up 41.8% year on year; Imports amounted to 15.9 billion yuan, up 29.1% year on year, which was characterized by stable growth, increased volume and superior quality.

"Huangshi Customs will take the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China as the guide, continue to explore the road of high-level opening up, and help Huangshi build a bridgehead for opening Wuhan metropolitan area to the east." Ma Hongbo, the head of Huangshi Customs, said.