In the first quarter of this year, the import and export volume of the Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) reached 159.19 billion RMB, accounting for 7.8 percent of the province's total foreign trade, according to the Guangdong Sub-Administration of the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC). Among them, the total value of mechanical and electrical products exported by enterprises in the free trade zone was up to 45.83 billion RMB, accounting for 60.3 percent, and the total value of imported consumer goods reached 14.20 billion RMB, accounting for 17.1 percent.
Continuously optimized customs supervision services enable the flow of cross-border goods in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) to become more convenient and efficient. For example, the China (Guangdong) International Trade Single Window platform has been put into use.
Relying on the platform, the "single submission" service for cargo between Guangdong and Hong Kong, Macao has been launched. This service streamlines cross-border import and export operations, greatly improving work efficiency and reducing customs clearance time and costs. The time for enterprises to file mandatory items for declaration lists has been reduced by more than 80 percent, promoting the sharing and interoperability of cross-border trade data between these three regions.
In order to facilitate the convergence of rules in the GBA, on March 18, 30 "one-stop" inspection lanes for passengers and commercial vehicles started operating at Hengqin Port. These special lanes will adopt the new customs clearance mode, which is "joint inspection and one-time release". Under this mode, five government departments from Guangdong and Macao, including Hengqin Customs, Hengqin Checkpoint, Macao Customs Service, Macao Public Security Police Force, and Macao Health Bureau, are able to complete the inspection process in the same lane and system simultaneously.
Since the implementation of this practice, Hengqin Port has inspected and released a total of over one million inbound and outbound vehicles, with an average daily number of nearly 6,000 vehicles, and the customs clearance efficiency has increased by 40 percent.
As Hengqin began implementing these special customs operations on March 1, the number of passengers passing through the "first-tier" customs has exceeded 1.68 million, an increase of 29.7 percent, and the number of vehicles has surpassed 179,000, an increase of 1.1 percent.
Reporter | Nancy Ye
Editors | Steven, Monica, James
Photos provided to GDToday
