In 2009, Guangzhou Government further accelerated the construction of “Joint Customs Clearance” to assist export-oriented enterprises in guarding against international financial crisis in a better way. And a series of targeted measures have been formulated to enhance efficiency of the customs clearance, which helps create a better business environment for seizing orders and adjusting enterprise structures.
The measures are as follows:
i To Adopt A Package of Measures for Anti-Crisis
Under the framework of “Joint Customs Clearance”, Guangzhou Municipality Customs Administration issued Guidelines for Promoting Economic Development; Huangpu District Customs Administration formulates Eight Measures for Facilitating Growth of Enterprises; Guangdong Inspection and Quarantine launched Guidelines for Counteracting Global Financial Crisis and Maintaining Steady Growth through Expanding Domestic Demand. And Guangzhou Port Authority issued Measures for Assisting Shipping Enterprises to Guard against Global Financial Crisis. The practical benefit was the fees-exemption of over 10 million RMB as fees for inspection and quarantine from exporters of agricultural products and textile and garmen.t
ii Pilot Reforms of Categorization Clearance
Guangzhou Municipality Customs Administration and Huangpu District Customs Administration Implement Differentiated Management Customs declarations free from certificates or taxation are operated by a computer automatically, which simplifies the operating procedure with higher efficiency. According to the statistics analyzed, 86.55 percent of Guangzhou Customs export declarations fell into the category with low risk, and the averaged everyday clearing rate was 99.79 percent.
As for Huangpu District Customs, more than 65 percent of export declarations and about 22 percent of import declarations were entitled to enjoy favorable services like “green channel” or “lowrisk channel”. Particularly, the average time ranging from electronic reporting of export declarations being presented afterwards to customs clearance can be reduced to 3 minutes or less. That is to say, it only takes 10 minutes to finish the whole procedure of customs clearance.
iiiThe Arrangement of Green Channels Across Jurisdictions and Customs
The administrations involving inspection and quarantine and customs have implemented the pilot reform of customs clearance, which include clearance across jurisdictions and the Customs in the province. Guangzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau and the Guangzhou Municipality Customs also comply with regulations on those piloting enterprises who are entitled to enjoy category clearance with “afterwards documents delivery” and exemption from export inspection and quarantine, the green channel or first-class treatment. And now fast clearance mechanism has been gradually perfected with the customs inspection co-operation service under the inspection&quarantine assessment system, which turns out to be an efficient practice to facilitate customs clearance and inspection.
iv. The Improvement of Customs Clearance Environment at Key Ports
Allweek service is available at the inspection authorities of the Customs and inspection and quarantine, where both declarations with large items and English manifest declarations are accepted, together with query about the proceeding status.
Those ships that have gone through with their pre-screening procedures may carry out their loading or unloading of goods when arriving at their berths. Guangzhou Municipality Customs and Huangpu District Customs have increased the number of ports where the “mutual recognition” practice is carried out, and moreover, an information system for “mutual recognition” has been developed, which has greatly improved the efficiency of customs clearance and helps to secure more sources of goods supply at Nansha Port. The year of 2009 witnessed the number of containers reaching 22,227 standard ones, a yearonyear increase by 43 percent. In addition, Nansha Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has set up green channel for large exporters of electrical appliances.
v. The Acceleration of the Settlement of Foreign Exchanges and Tax Refunding
Foreign exchanges administrations have formulated Directories for Directories for Exchanges Remittance Administrations in Other Regions to facilitate importers with off-site remittance of foreign exchanges, providing convenient measures for enterprises processing with customers-materials to register with excess exchanges, and easing the handling time for those enterprises to register with forward receipt of exchanges. Other promotions have been launched in piloting settlement with RMB for cross-border trade, coordination of imp&exp, receipt and remittance of exchanges and tax refunding. In addition, auxiliary auditing system and online system for tax refunding have been promoted, which greatly facilitates the working efficiency and augment of foreign trade.
vi.The Encouragment of the Enterprises-Participation in Customs Clearance
The relevant service departments will sincerely listen to the enterprises for their constructive suggestions about the “Joint Customs Clearance” with corresponding measures taken. All the involving administrative departments such as the Customs, foreign trade, inspection and exchanges have called for a series of information sessions on the policies concerned. And the immigration administration carried out “immigration control interviews” among the grass-roots units 342 times with 393 questionnaires in order to find the practical needs for improving the “Joint Customs Clearance”, a vigorous increase of the city’s port business. Cargo throughput at Guangzhou Port reached 364 million tons, of which 83.34 million tons were foreign goods, a year-on-year growth by 4.9 percent respectively. Container throughput at Nansha Port climbed to 6.55 million standard containers with 1.857 millions of foreign goods, a year-on-year increase by 1.7 percent and 0.1percent respectively.
Passenger throughput at Baiyun Airport amounted to 37.051 million passengers and 4.099 million passengers were international ones, a year-on-year increase by 10.8 percent and 3.4 percent respectively. And cargo and mail throughput reached 955,000 tons, of which 419,000 tons were international ones respectively, respctively increasing by 39.3 percent and 110.4 percent. Travelers through Guangzhou immigration ports reached 7.3481 million by transporting vessels of 86,100 ships, trains or planes.
Guangzhou City
