State Council Affairs Office Holds Regular Briefing on State Council Policies to Promote the Stability, Scale, and Structure of Foreign Trade

On the morning of April 23, 2023, the State Council Information Office held a regular briefing on the policies of the State Council, introducing the relevant situation of promoting the stability, scale and optimization of foreign trade structure. Wu Haiping, Director of the Comprehensive Business Department of the General Administration of Customs, attended and answered questions from reporters.

Press conference podium (photographed by Liu Jian)

The following are some factual records:

Questions from reporters from China News Agency (photographed by Liu Jian)

Reporter from China News Agency:

In order to promote the stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade, the State Council has recently introduced a new round of measures on the basis of multiple rounds of stable foreign trade policies that have been introduced in the early stage. Can you please ask the customs to introduce the work they have done in promoting stability and quality in foreign trade? Will there be any new support measures introduced in the next step? thank you.

Wu Haiping (photographed by Xu Xiang)

Wu Haiping, Director of the Comprehensive Business Department of the General Administration of Customs:

Thank you for your question and for your attention to customs work. The General Administration of Customs firmly implements the decisions and deployments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, attaches great importance to it, and effectively promotes the stability, scale, and structure of foreign trade.

Last year, the General Administration of Customs successively introduced 23 measures to stabilize foreign trade. Local customs have refined over 1300 specific measures based on local conditions. From the perspective of content, each and every item focuses on promoting stability and improving quality, as well as enterprise concerns. This includes inclusive measures such as ensuring port connectivity, ensuring the safety and stability of the industrial chain supply chain, continuously optimizing the port business environment, and innovating the “release before inspection” regulatory model for bulk commodities, accelerating the clearance of urgently needed goods by enterprises, and opening up personalized measures such as the “green channel” for agricultural products to meet the needs of different types of enterprises, In addition, measures such as the “customs director’s door-to-door delivery policy” and the improvement of 12360 hotline services have formed tangible service development measures for enterprises. From the perspective of effectiveness, it should be said that these measures have been welcomed by business entities and have contributed to China’s foreign trade scale reaching a new historical high last year.

Since the beginning of this year, we have optimized and upgraded our previous relevant measures, continuously focused on their implementation, unleashed the dividends of policy measures, and better promoted the stable growth of foreign trade. In the first quarter, foreign trade import and export started steadily and improved month by month. The newly introduced policies and measures of the State Council to stabilize foreign trade are aimed at promoting greater efforts to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure of foreign trade. The General Administration of Customs will firmly implement and review the implementation of customs support measures in the early stage. Based on the current pain points, difficulties, and obstacles faced by enterprises, the measures will be continuously enriched, adjusted, and improved to further improve trade facilitation, smooth import and export logistics, optimize port business environment, reduce enterprise costs, and support the development of new business models. New customs support measures will be studied and launched. At the same time, we will continue to carry out the “Customs Commissioner delivers policies to the doorstep” service, accurately helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, and making every effort to promote stability and quality in foreign trade. thank you!

Southern Daily reporter’s question (photographed by Liu Jian)

Southern Daily reporter:

May I ask, as an important link that foreign trade enterprises cannot avoid, what new considerations do customs have in helping enterprises alleviate difficulties and stimulate the vitality of foreign trade enterprises? thank you.

Wu Haiping:

Thank you for your question. Customs interact with enterprises every day and empathize with the warmth and coldness of foreign trade enterprises. The concept of “People’s Customs for the People” and serving the development of enterprises are essential. Throughout, the customs has continuously improved the long-term mechanism for serving enterprises. At present, we mainly focus on the following aspects of service work:

In terms of increasing convenience, we will deepen the construction of a “single window” for international trade and provide enterprises with a “one-stop” service for customs clearance. We will make greater efforts to deepen the reform of “streamlining management and serving the government”, and implement measures for the convenience of the people and enterprises, such as the “full online and nationwide” registration of customs declaration units. In the first quarter of this year, there were 90000 new customs registered enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 59.8%. Support more enterprises to become customs advanced certification enterprises, steadily promote “certified operators”, that is, AEO mutual recognition, and promote enterprises to enjoy convenience both domestically and internationally.

In terms of cost reduction, we support enterprises to enjoy various tax preferential policies. Last year alone, we reduced and refunded taxes of 285 billion yuan for foreign trade enterprises. This year, we will continue to help enterprises make full use of tariff preferences in free trade agreements such as RCEP, reduce import and export costs, further expand the scope of active disclosure system application, and reduce the impact of minor violations on their business operations.

In terms of activation, we have strengthened customs protection of intellectual property rights and deployed a series of special actions such as the “Longteng Action 2023” to comprehensively strengthen intellectual property protection, and the “Blue Net Action 2023” to protect intellectual property rights in shipping channels. We continue to maintain a high-pressure trend of cracking down on infringement and stimulate the innovation vitality of enterprises. In the first quarter of this year, 3864 new intellectual property customs protection records were added. At the same time, regularly release foreign trade data and various trade indices to serve foreign trade enterprises in better exploring the market.

In the first quarter of this year, there were 457000 actual foreign trade enterprises in China, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year. From a data perspective, the vitality of China’s foreign trade enterprises continues to increase, strongly supporting the stable growth of foreign trade. thank you!

Source/Guoxin Network

Producer/Tao Yong

Reviewer/Sun Weiru, Lei Xu

Editor/Dai Jun

Art Editor/Wei Hao