On March 18, the executive meeting of State Council of China adopted the measures for improving port-related work to promote opening-up and stable development of foreign trade. It said that, the stable development of foreign trade is of great importance for stabilizing growth, restructuring and improving national competitiveness. Therefore, the port-related work should be enhanced and improved to create a convenient, efficient, fair and transparent customs clearance environment.

 

At the meeting, it was determined that: further efforts should be made to cancel and delegate more administrative examination and approval powers and all related non-administratively approved examination and approval procedures should be cancelled; services for customs clearance should be improved, while administrative and institutional charges in violation of laws and regulations should be banned and operational charges should be standardized to alleviate the burdens on enterprises; the general customs clearance cooperation mechanism should be innovated to promote nationwide extension of integrated customs clearance; layout of ports should be optimized and support should be provided to build comprehensive pilot sites for cross-border e-business. These measures aim to help the Chinese economy maintain a medium- and high-speed development and step toward the high end.

 

Source: Nanfang Daily, March 21, 2015