Beijing, March 3 (Reporter Wang Jing) "Customs is the gate of the country, and the more China's door to the outside world opens, the greater the responsibility of the customs to guard the country." On March 20, the State Council's new office held a series of themed press conferences on "the beginning of authoritative departments", Yu Jianhua, director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced the relevant situation of "guarding the country, promoting development, and contributing customs strength to promoting Chinese-style modernization" and responding to hot issues, involving China's foreign trade situation in 3, support measures for import and export enterprises, cross-border e-commerce development, etc.

Yu Jianhua revealed that the overseas warehouse declaration process will be optimized to serve enterprises to further expand exports.

The foreign trade situation has started steadily and the trend is good

According to customs statistics, in the first two months of this year, the total value of China's imports and exports was 6.18 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.8% year-on-year.

Yu Jianhua said that the customs is closely monitoring the development of foreign trade since March, and the overall view is that the start is stable and the trend is good.

Specifically, Yu Jianhua said that in terms of scale, the total export value in the first two months hit a record high, an increase of 0.9%, better than expected. The total value of imports and exports exceeded 6 trillion yuan, which is the second time in history. In the same period before the epidemic, the peak was less than 5 trillion yuan.

From the perspective of composition, during the epidemic, China took the lead in resuming work and production, and the export of epidemic prevention materials and "home economy" products increased significantly, raising the foreign trade base. It is estimated that if the "one-time factor" is excluded, imports and exports will increase by more than 10% in the first two months of this year.

From the trend point of view, according to weekly monitoring, China's foreign trade imports and exports have stabilized significantly since February, and the last week of February increased by more than 2% compared with the previous week. At the same time, from the perspective of neighboring countries, China's foreign trade performance is good compared with the surrounding economies that have released data.

Yu Jianhua also said that at present, foreign trade is also facing many difficulties and challenges, among which the weakening of foreign demand has attracted the most attention. High global inflation and weak growth in major economies have had a sustained impact on global trade.

However, from the positive and optimistic side, in the first two months of this year, more enterprises entered the field of foreign trade in terms of business entities, and 4,6 foreign trade business entities were newly registered by the customs. "It shows that confidence is building and recovering. In terms of orders, according to tracking and monitoring, the proportion of enterprises with an increase in the amount of new export orders has continued to increase. Yu Jianhua said that in terms of new kinetic energy, the total export of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells increased by 15%. Cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 8.10%. In terms of trade diversification, China's imports and exports to countries along the "Belt and Road" increased by more than 3%, and the total imports and exports to other RCEP members increased by more than <>%.

Last year, imports and exports exceeded 2 trillion yuan

Sun Yuning, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said that in the future, it will continue to pay attention to overseas food safety issues, timely release early warning information, and continue to improve cross-border e-commerce import and export return measures.

Sun Yuning said at the press conference that cross-border e-commerce is different from traditional trade methods and trade characteristics, showing the characteristics of fragmentation, sea quantification and informatization. This poses a challenge to customs supervision.

He said that in the future, the General Administration of Customs will take various measures to strengthen cross-border e-commerce supervision, including the use of intelligent verification methods to prevent cross-border e-commerce smuggling through the authenticity verification of customs declaration documents; Strengthen collaboration with cross-border e-commerce platform enterprises; Widely carry out the application of commodity barcodes, strengthen the traceability management of goods, and let consumers rest assured; Continue to pay attention to overseas food safety issues and issue early warning information in a timely manner.

In terms of optimizing cross-border e-commerce services, Sun Yuning said that cross-border e-commerce enterprises will be supported to pay taxes electronically to facilitate online processing; Promote the "inspection before loading" of export LCL goods, further improve logistics efficiency, reduce enterprise costs, strengthen data analysis services, and optimize the overseas warehouse declaration process.

He said that he will continue to improve import and export return measures to solve the "worries" of enterprises and consumers.

In recent years, China's cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly. According to official data, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports have increased from 2018 trillion yuan in 1 to 2022.2 trillion yuan in 11, and more and more "Made in China" have entered the international consumer goods market through cross-border e-commerce.

Optimize the business environment at ports

According to Zhao Zenglian, director of the General Office of the General Administration of Customs, in the past period, with the close cooperation of all parties, Customs has launched a series of innovative measures to optimize the business environment at ports, and achieved certain results.

Through this package of measures, the time for customs clearance at ports is shorter, the cost of customs clearance is lower, and the procedures for customs clearance are more convenient. "Optimizing the business environment at ports is only better, there is no best, and it is always on the way." Zhao Zenglian said that in the next step, new powerful measures will continue to be launched, which can be summarized in 15 words: excellent facilities, building platforms, promoting connectivity, strengthening cooperation, and improving efficiency.

In terms of optimizing port facilities, the Customs is working with relevant parties to accelerate the expansion of construction projects at important border ports and further improve the customs clearance capacity of border ports. It is guiding Hainan Province to implement the free trade port layout plan, accelerate the construction of free trade ports, and provide port facilities guarantee for the next step of customs closure and operation as scheduled.

Zhao Zenglian said that in terms of building a service platform, including the construction of a "single window" for international trade, it will further play its role as a comprehensive service platform to realize the automatic capture of export tax rebate declaration and invoice information, and facilitate enterprises to handle tax rebate business. Optimize "customs clearance + logistics" and "foreign trade + finance" related services, and provide enterprises with services such as information inquiry of the whole process of customs clearance logistics, export credit insurance handling, cross-border settlement and financing.

The reporter learned from the press conference that the customs is actively promoting the resumption of land border ports with all parties. At present, the resumption of freight at relevant land border ports has been "fully opened", and relevant passenger corridors are being resumed in an orderly manner. Further promote the development of cross-border trains such as the China-Europe Express and the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, and support the development of multimodal transport such as "sea-rail combined transport" in various places.

Zhao Zenglian said that in conjunction with the World Bank's new business environment assessment system, vigorously promote international cooperation on "smart customs, smart borders, and smart connectivity", coordinate and promote the construction of smart ports, steadily promote the "green channel" for rapid customs clearance of agricultural and sideline products, promote "single window" cooperation between China and countries along the "Belt and Road", and promote the exchange and sharing of documents related to cross-border trade.

In addition, improve the efficiency of customs clearance. On the basis of the previous assessment, we will continue to further promote the pilot reform of customs clearance facilitation such as "shipside pickup", "direct loading on arrival" and "combined port". Guide all localities to publish the port customs clearance process and the operation time limit of the main links in combination with the actual situation, stabilize the customs clearance time within a reasonable range, and provide the majority of enterprises with relatively stable customs clearance expectations.