More measures to facilitate cross-border trade in Beijing-Tianjin region

2018-04-15

Following the first batch of measures facilitating cross-border trade released on March 18 by Beijing and Tianjin, a second batch of 16 measures was announced on April 12. The new measures, focusing on saving time, cutting costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing transparency, aim to make cross-border trade in Beijing and Tianjin more convenient.

At a press conference on April 12, Ke Yongguo, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce, said that since June 2017, Beijing and Tianjin governmental departments of commerce, customs, inspection and quarantine, and trading port have issued 13 policy documents with the aim to save time, reduce cost, and boost efficiency regarding the region's cross-border trade. The first batch of 17 new measures implemented since March this year had proved especially successful. For instance, with the introduction of the new “single window” platform, the previous requirements of 1,781 data elements in the process of port inspection had been cut down to 731 elements, and the categories of information in customs declaration had been reduced from 186 to 92. At present, over half of the cross-border trade volume in Beijing is done on the new platform, Ke said.

The second batch of 16 measures was introduced to further shorten and streamline the trading process. One-stop services will be provided to accommodate prior booking, customs clearance, customs inspection, docking, and storage in Tianjin. With the updated process, vehicles will pass the gate in less than two minutes, containers will be picked up and offloaded within 30 minutes,and inspected within six hours, and window services will take no more than 10 minutes.

In addition, Beijing and Tianjin will simplify paperwork for cross-border trade. Starting from April 1, the import permit for 10 automobile parts that previously required both national and local levels of examination and approval would now need only a local one, which takes one workday to process, according to Zhu Zhenyu, director of the port service office in Tianjin. Meanwhile, the two cities will continue to integrate different services such as import permit applications for non-mechanical products and export credit insurance into a single service window.

China.org.cn