Cities streamline cross-border trade

Beijing and Tianjin municipal governments recently carried out 16 new measures to foster a better cross-border trade environment.

The new measures are aimed at raising efficiency and reducing fees, and highlight the use of data sharing and artificial intelligence.

"We aim to smooth the customs process and create a more friendly business environment for companies through our reforms," said Ke Yongguo, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce at a recent media briefing.

For instance, customs clearance and inspections will be conducted at the same time through an online data sharing platform.

"It saves processing time and, more importantly, largely reduces operation costs for business owners," said Zhao Weizhen, an officer at Beijing Customs. "Compared with the past, when they needed to report for inspection first, and then get clearance after they had got permission from the inspection department."

Other measures include new regulations on agencies - third-party, cross-border, trade service providers - the enhancement of the current online clearance platform, a reduction in application procedures, and efforts to guarantee a more transparent fees' charging process. Since last June, the central and local governments have been making efforts to enhance the cross-border business environment, and 13 policies on this subject have been launched.

This year, Beijing and Tianjin announced 17 measures in March and the policies have shown positive results, said government officials at the conference.

According to Ke, the number of items that need to be reported for an enterprises' qualification check was reduced from 186 to 92. In addition, enterprises can report for clearance two days ahead of their arrival, and are able to pass through immediately once their duties have been paid.

Moreover, an online platform that connects four departments including clearance and inspections, and allows data sharing was promoted. Up to now, more than 50 percent of Beijing's cross-border trade was checked through the platform.

"Online checking is also used for CCC certification in the automotive sector," Ke added.

"It helps promote a paperless process," Ke said, " and also saves business owners time by avoiding repetitive filing to different departments." Ke added that the CCC processing time was largely reduced from the previous 24 hours to less than an hour.

"We also see great improvements on the transparency of fees charging and an upgrade to the current logistics system," Ke said.