SCIO briefing series on 'high-quality achievements during the 14th Five-Year Plan period': Customs

21st Century Business Herald:

The quality and safety of import and export commodities are closely related to people's lives. Could you share the specific measures the GAC has taken to ensure the quality and safety of import and export commodities during the 14th Five-Year Plan period? What progress has been achieved so far? Thank you.

Sun Meijun:

Thank you for your questions. Ensuring the quality and safety of import and export commodities is a core responsibility of customs authorities. I'd like to invite Mr. Zhao to answer the questions.

Zhao Zenglian:

Indeed, as you mentioned, the quality and safety of import and export commodities is an issue of great concern to consumers. When goods enter or leave the country, customs authorities strictly control the quality and safety, mainly by focusing on innovating mechanisms, strengthening supervision, ensuring safety and optimizing services. 

First, we have made risk prevention and control more efficient through institutional innovation. We have established a risk prevention, control and monitoring system to ensure the quality and safety of import and export commodities. Acting like an early warning radar, the system continuously tracks risk information related to domestic and foreign commodity quality and safety, and it responds to and consequently disposes of risks the moment they are detected. We have established a commodity quality and safety information sharing mechanism with 35 countries and regions, including the United States, Russia, and the European Union. Domestically, we have set up a collaborative mechanism for handling imported and exported defective products with departments such as market supervision, industry and information technology, and commerce, so as to strengthen the cooperative management of the quality and safety of import and export commodities. 

Second, we have strengthened oversight to ensure greater security at the borders. Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the customs has inspected more than 9 million batches of import and export goods and returned over 10,000 batches of substandard mineral products and recycled metals. Illegal foreign garbage was banned from entering China, more than 4,000 batches of solid waste were returned, and 589 criminal cases of smuggling waste were filed and investigated. Comprehensive management and control of dangerous goods has been carried out at ports, with more than 9,000 cases of false reporting or concealment detected and more than 130,000 batches of unqualified dangerous goods identified, effectively safeguarding security at borders. 

Third, we have made people feel more reassured through safe and reliable practices. We closely monitored clothing, home appliances, and baby and children products that are highly relevant to people's life, and detected 12,000 batches of substandard products and 68,000 non-conforming cars, resolutely preventing substandard and unsafe products from entering households.

Fourth, we have optimized services to let foreign trade enterprises enjoy benefits and convenience. We continuously enhanced the capacity and level of policy supply to reduce costs and enhance efficiency for enterprises. By innovating regulatory models, the customs clearance time for imported mineral products and exported lithium batteries has been shortened by more than 80%. Intelligent inspection of imported bulk commodities helped enterprises increase profits by 1.8 billion yuan. We have detected and uncovered 39,000 batches of imported goods with short weight, helping enterprises recover nearly 10 billion yuan in economic losses.

We also carried out campaigns to promote the quality and safety of export products jointly with relevant departments, making sure our exports are high-quality and innovative, thus further boosting the reputation of Made in China products while providing China-chic products with good quality and fine design worldwide.

Thank you.

Shou Xiaoli:

Two more journalists have raised their hands. These will be the last two questions.