Yicai.com:

Cross-border trade is closely related to people's daily lives and has developed rapidly in recent years. How do customs authorities improve and maintain efficiency while ensuring safety during customs clearance?

Yu Jianhua:

Cross-border e-commerce is of great public concern and has achieved rapid development. In 2018, China's cross-border e-commerce transactions exceeded 1 trillion yuan and doubled to over 2 trillion yuan last year. We will have Mr. Sun answer your question.

Sun Yuning: 

Thank you. Cross-border e-commerce has evolved to a global platform for buying and selling goods. It has served as a new engine driving China's foreign trade development as well as a leverage to promote high-quality development. In the new decade, cross-border e-commerce has entered a stage of rapid growth. Over the past five years, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased from 1 trillion yuan in 2018 to 2.11 trillion yuan in 2022, showcasing significant growth both in volume and quality. An increasing number of Chinese-made products are entering the international consumer goods market through cross-border e-commerce. At present, there are 165 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones nationwide, covering 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. They have become an essential carrier and platform for developing cross-border e-commerce.

As a new form of international trade, cross-border e-commerce has achieved vigorous growth and had a profound influence on international trade. It differs from traditional trade in that it is fragmented, IT-based, and involves a massive amount of goods. Data shows that the number of declaration lists of imports via cross-border e-commerce is 56 times that of the number of goods declarations during the same period, with an average value per list of less than three ten-thousandths of the value of the goods declarations. We have seized prohibited goods, such as firearms, explosives, drugs, controlled psychotropic substances, intellectual property rights-infringing items, and exotic pets. It can be said that these new situations have posed challenges to customs regulatory work.

We have introduced a management system that is different from customs clearance for traditional trade to cater to the development trends and characteristics of cross-border e-commerce. Through classification management and tailored measures, we have created a customs supervision model that is suitable for cross-border e-commerce. Building on the existing "Business to Consumer (B2C)" policy, we proposed a new regulatory policy that better serves "Business to Business (B2B)" and "Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C)" transactions. In this process, we have strengthened the role of technology and developed and launched a unified IT-based system for cross-border e-commerce regulation, which integrates and manages transaction, payment, logistics, and other related data. At the same time, we have fully promoted the paperless registration of overseas warehouses for cross-border e-commerce export, allowing enterprises to register their information with one customs authority and use it nationwide. As of the end of February, there were 1,713 registered overseas warehouse enterprises.

Next, the GACC will continue to adhere to the regulatory concept of "innovation, inclusiveness, prudence and coordination," and put equal emphasis on regulation and development. It will mainly focus on the following two aspects: On the one hand, we will work harder to strengthen regulations. First, we will prevent the smuggling of cross-border e-commerce by checking the authenticity of customs declaration forms via intelligent means; second, we will strengthen cooperation with cross-border e-commerce platform enterprises and control risks in advance to further reduce the operation risks of enterprises and supervision risks of customs; third, we will expand the application of commodity barcodes and strengthen the management of commodity sources to boost consumers' confidence; and fourth, we will pay close attention to issues regarding global food safety and issue warnings in a timely manner. On the other hand, we will take effective measures to upgrade services. First, we will support the e-payment of taxes for cross-border e-commerce businesses to facilitate online procedures; second, we will promote "inspection before installation" for less than container load (LCL) export cargo to further facilitate logistics efficiency and reduce the costs of enterprises; third, we will advance data analysis services so as to provide strong anticipatory guidance for the high-quality development of new business forms; fourth, we will optimize declaration procedures for overseas warehouses to further expand exports for enterprises; and fifth, we will constantly improve measures on returning imported and exported goods to ease the worries of both enterprises and consumers. Thank you.