All relevant entities,

In order to thoroughly implement the Regulation on Optimizing the Business Environment (Guo Ling No. 722 Document) issued by the State Council, the Regulation of Shanghai Municipality on Optimizing the Business Environment issued by Shanghai Municipal People's Congress and the Action Plan of Shanghai Municipality for Enhancing the Reform of System Integration and Continuously Strengthening the Development of World-Class Business Environment issued by the Shanghai Municipal CPC Committee and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, accelerate the formation of a law-based, international and convenient business environment for cross-border trade and constantly improve the sense of fulfillment among the import and export enterprises, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Shanghai Customs, Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau, Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration, Shanghai Municipal Tax Service of State Taxation Administration, Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration and Shanghai Office of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly formulate the Several Measures for Strengthening the Reform of Business Environment for Cross-border Trade at Shanghai Port in 2021, which is hereby issued and shall be earnestly implemented.

Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce

Shanghai Customs

Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission

Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau

Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission

Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Administration

Shanghai Municipal Tax Service, State Taxation Administration

Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration

Shanghai Office of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission

  February 26, 2021 

Several Measures for Strengthening the Reform of Business Environment for Cross-border Trade at Shanghai Port in 2021

In order to implement the State Council's Regulation on Optimizing the Business Environment, the Regulation of Shanghai Municipality on Optimizing the Business Environment, and the Action Plan of Shanghai Municipality for Enhancing the Reform of System Integration and Continuously Strengthening the Development of World-Class Business Environment, continue to optimize the business environment for cross-border trade in Shanghai, and further reduce costs and improve efficiency, several measures are hereby formulated to strengthen the reform of business environment for the cross-border trade at Shanghai Port in 2021 as follows:

I. Optimizing the "Clearance and Logistics" operation process

i. The "two-step declaration" mode for imported goods will be promoted. In the first step of "essentials declaration", the companies may only fill in 9 items and confirm 2 logistics items so as to pick up the goods after the customs complete risk management procedures; within 14 days after picking up the goods, the second step of "full declaration" shall be completed, and the clearance formalities such as tax payment shall be handled.

ii. The tariff payment will be further facilitated. The coverage of the policies for tariff guarantee insurance, self-declaration and self-payment, collective taxation and electronic payment will be expanded to speed up customs clearance.

iii. The declaration reservation function of the Shanghai International Trade Single Window will be promoted. The enterprises can make a declaration reservation through the Shanghai International Trade Single Window declaration system when other declaration information is ready but the manifest information has not yet been obtained. The system, which is constantly receiving manifests from shipping companies and shipping agencies, will match manifest information with reserved declaration forms, and automatically deliver declaration forms once matched, thus saving the time of enterprises to wait for and inquire about the manifests.

iv. The inspection rate for the advanced Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) will be optimized. The risk control arrangements will be made more targeted, the sampling rates for relevant commodities will be dynamically adjusted according to the credit ratings of the companies, and the sampling rates for relevant commodities at ports and destinations will be set in a scientific manner.

v. The inspections without companies' presence and online checks and inspections will be promoted energetically. The inspections without companies’ presence will be promoted, the companies will be encouraged to adopt the "unaccompanied inspections" or "entrust the operators of the supervised sites to be present in the inspections", in a bid to reduce costs of customs clearance and improve the customs clearance efficiency. The "merging multiple inspections into one" will be advanced, and the frequencies of actual on-site visits and physical inspections will be reduced through remote face-to-face meetings, video surveillance, online submission, and other means.

vi. The system of the admissible third-party inspection will be promoted. Efforts will be made to give full play to the role of the admissible third-party inspection in enhancing the cross-border trade facilitation, and steadily expand the coverage of the commodities for the admissible third-party inspection. With enterprises' own declaration and the inspection results of the professionally qualified inspection and testing institutions, laboratory testing procedures can be exempted, so as to speed up customs clearance.

vii. The big data supervision of cross-border trade will be improved. Relying on the Shanghai big data platform for cross-border trade, we will further expand the scope of data collection in trade chains, supply chains, and logistics chains, use the big data technology to form various risk prevention and control models and facilitation application projects, achieve a higher level of integration of safety and convenience, facilitate the law-abiding enterprises in realizing rapid customs clearance of goods, and continuously improve the enterprises' sense of fulfillment.

viii. The operation modes of "ship-side pick-up" of imported goods and "ship-side delivery" of exported goods will be further piloted. On the premise of ensuring the safety of production in the port area, according to the enterprises' voluntary application, the operations of "ship-side pick-up" and "ship-side delivery" will be ensured for the goods that meet the operating conditions, so as to provide convenience for the enterprises in need to rapidly pick up the goods, shorten the time of the port storage for the goods and speed up customs clearance and logistics.

II. Simplifying document requirements

ix. The attached documents requirements of customs declarations will be simplified. When the enterprises make paperless declarations through the International Trade Single Window, there is no need to submit the contract, packing list, and manifest for in import, and the contract, invoice, packing list, and manifest in export.

x. The procedures for reviewing customs declaration record errors will be simplified. The modified import or export dates in the "pre-arrival declaration" and the "two-step declaration", the changed means of transportation for the goods because of shipment, stowage, etc, and other violations that are not caused by the subjective intention of the companies, are declared to the customs by the companies proactively and can be corrected in a timely manner, will not be recorded as declaration errors. Those with the declaration errors that meet the abovementioned conditions may apply for review online through the "Customs-Enterprise Online Platform" within 15 working days from the date of recording the customs declaration errors, without the need to submit paper materials on site. The customs will conduct a review within 3 working days from the date of receipt of the application, notify the review result, and correct any record errors.

xi. The procedures concerning the bill of lading (B/L) will be simplified. We will encourage and call on shipping companies and shipping agents to cancel the paper letter of authorization for transferring the import B/L. The shipping companies will be encouraged to improve the efficiency in signing and issuing the export B/L and reduce the time for enterprises to the export B/L through the pilot program where the export bills of lading are signed and issued on line and are printed by enterprises on their own.

xii. The application of the electronic attached documents and automated review for maritime dangerous goods declaration will be promoted in an all-round manner. In the import and export declaration, the system will improve the accuracy of review for dangerous goods and the efficiency of maritime review through document check supported by intelligent identification of the electronic attached documents, thereby further regulating the paperless declaration process for the goods and saving the time for customs clearance.

III. Upgrading the port facilities

xiii. The IT platforms will be upgraded at ports. We will develop the one-stop platform for shipping business inquiry and processing, improve the two-way information sharing between the port business acceptance system and the Shanghai International Trade Single Window, upgrade the Shanghai Port Electronic Container Equipment Interchange Receipt Platform (eEIR) to “Version 2.0”, achieve the timely disclosure of information on container storage and use, improve the supportive services such as reservation for pick-up, provide convenience for the users to realize electronic container release and accurate pick-up on a single platform, and form a service system characterized by information sharing, efficiency and coordination at Shanghai Port.

xiv. The efficiency of container trucks entering and leaving the ports will be improved. The development of smart gates will be advanced. Based on the improvement and integration of trucks’ entry and exit reservation system and the mobile phone app, the comprehensive intelligent upgrading will be conducted for port gates, and efforts will be made in realizing centralized acceptance of port gate businesses.

xv. The real-time information interchange of the customs and the port will be improved. With support of the Shanghai International Trade Single Window, the Real-time two-way interchange between supervision information such as customs inspection orders and port information such as cargo arrivals and departures will be realized Relying on, the efficiency of linkage between customs supervision and port operations will be enhanced, and the time of imports and exports staying at port will be shortened.

xvi. Intensive and electronic distribution of seals for containers will be promoted. We will promote centralized distribution of container seals at yards and port gates, and electronic distribution on self-service seals machines, so as to improve the efficiency of obtaining and delivering seals.

IV. Regulating port charges

xvii. The publication of charge list and service information will be improved. We will optimize the publication of charge list and service information on the Shanghai International Trade Single Window, and explore value discovery through price comparison and condition screening; the charging entities should strengthen the management of the fee catalogues and lists, thoroughly sort out and regulate the existing lists, dynamically adjust them, and ensure that the lists are consistent with the actual situations and there are no charges beyond the lists; the industry competent departments should supervise and guide the market entities to publish charge lists properly, and the publication will be included in the enterprise integrity management.

xviii. The fee reduction measures of the state ministries and commissions will be implemented. We will strictly implement the policies and measures such as calling off port construction fees and reducing and merging port charges. We will continue to intensify the supervision of seaport charges, firmly investigate and punish according to law the charging violations such as coercive services and charges and irregularities in menu pricing. We will pay special attention to investigating and dealing with the failures to implement the preferential reduction and exemption policies in the port and inspection and quarantine processes.

xix. Guidance will be provided for the shipping companies to regulate charging behaviors. We will give full play to the self-discipline role of the shipping industry organizations, and urge shipping companies to regulate charging items and rationally adjust the structure of shipping charges. We will strictly implement the freight rate filing system, and carry out inspections for the implementation of the freight rate filing.

xx. The supervision over charging by shipping agents and forwarders will be tightened. We will regulate the names of the charges collected by the shipping agents and forwarders and their services, promote the condensing of charging items, and further standardize the practice of the shipping agents and forwarders in clearly marking the prices.

xxi. The management of container yards outside ports will be regulated. We will strengthen industry guidance, intensify the in-process and aftermath supervision of container yards outside ports, and urge the container yards to standardize the operations such as cleaning and repairing containers and re-hoisting and regulate the charging behaviors; we will toughen supervision and inspection, and crack down on the violations in charging according to the law.

V. Enhancing service for enterprises

xxii. The information disclosure and healthy competition in the intermediary industry will be promoted. We will announce the annual overall customs clearance time of customs brokers to push customs brokers to improve service efficiency. We will promote the https://gzdp.tongguanbao.net (the “intermediaries’ comments” network for cross-border trade), build it into a service platform for exchanges and interactions between import and export enterprises and intermediary service companies that is more comprehensive, objective, and convenient, and boost the specialized, market-based, and transparent development of the intermediary services for cross-border trade.

xxiii. The mechanisms of feedback of and assistance for companies will be improved. We will give full play to the roles of the channels such as the customs’ 12360 service hotline, the special survey and research system for customs statistics, the WeChat platform of “China Customs Credit Management”, the customs-enterprise coordinators, and the Shanghai International Trade Single Window hotline, so as to collect suggestions and demands of the companies, and provide targeted assistance based on the actual needs and problems of the enterprises.

xxiv. The filing system for export tax rebate documents will be optimized. We will promote the paperless document filing and allow enterprises to independently choose the form of document retention with approval by the tax authority.

xxv. The financing support for foreign trade enterprises will be stepped up. We will continue to implement a series of measures to strengthen the credit support for foreign trade enterprises and stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade, help commercial banks to set up special credit lines for foreign trade, further reduce the financing costs for foreign trade enterprises, and ensure the stability of the foreign trade supply chain and industry chain. We will build bridges between banks and enterprises, and facilitate the access of the enterprises to financing settlement, small-amount credit insurance loans, and Baoyirong (insurance financing service). We will deepen the financial service functions of Shanghai International Trade Single Window, increase the coverage of the companies taking out the export credit insurance, enrich the online financing products for import and export companies, and expand the financing channels.

xxvi. Efforts will be made to give further play to the role of credit insurance. The “credit insurance + guarantee” financing model will be expanded, and the Shanghai Policy Financing Guarantee Fund for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises and other policy financing guarantee institutions will provide guarantee support for eligible small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises. The cooperation mechanism between the government, credit insurance institutions and business associations will be improved, and the Shanghai branch of China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation will further step up its underwriting efforts to ensure that all the orders with demand and the companies with potential are insured. We will prioritize the settlement of the insurance claims made by the companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic. On the premise that the authenticity of the trade is undoubtedly clear, we will focus on verifying the trade background and the amount of creditor's rights, appropriately relax the requirements for claims settlement, and launch the procedures of loss determination and compensation first.

xxvii. The publicity and implementation of the reform policies will be strengthened. We will give full play to the role of the industry associations such as the customs brokers associations, freight forwarders associations, shipping companies’ associations, and port federations, take full advantage of the platforms such as the Shanghai International Trade Single Window, extensively promote and interpret the policies, and raise the awareness of the policies; and we will select a number of typical cases for promotion among enterprises, and encourage more companies to put them into use.