The city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province launched an E-platform for direct import parcels on July 20.

A total of 331 imported parcels from Japan, Canada and other regions cleared customs inspections at the cross-border E-commerce park on the day at a subdistrict of the Fujian Free Trade Zone.

The batch products were the first to get through the direct import system.

According to Fujian Daily, 13 companies operating direct import businesses are registered in the park.

Three companies - including Htyp.cn, Kuajing.com and Sunnytao.hk, a subsidiary of China's top airfreight enterprise, Sinotrans - have established links to the local customs division and other regulating bodies.

After an electronic order is placed, the online order sheet, payment certificate and online shipping sheet are automatically sent to customs for information confirmation. The move could greatly help reduce importers' labor costs.

Li Boqiang, managing director of htyp.cn, said that its customers can now receive their parcels within a day at the earliest, through the direct import gateway.

Li also said that the refined direct import system will allow the entire process to fall within seven days, compared to the previous minimum time frame of one month. He also said that the logistics cost will also go down by 50 percent.

Registered E-commerce companies will coordinate import orders from thousands of individual clients within China and offer tracking with the delivery of products.

The use of the platform is limited to goods transported via mail and courier services.

Since the imported products are considered to be personal postal articles, the tax rate is reduced by half. Any tax amount of no more than 50 yuan ($8.05) is deductible.

The city is the fourth in China to have such a network for direct imports and follows Qingdao, Guangzhou and Nanjing.

Xiamen initiated its E-commerce export platform in 2014.