According to Changsha Customs, the import and export value of China (Hunan) Pilot FTZ reached 114.579 billion yuan in the first eight months of this year, accounting for 27.3% of Hunan province’s total.

The Hunan FTZ has witnessed continuous growth in imports and exports since it was approved in September 2020. Its total imports and exports reached 213.588 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 27.8% year on year.

Over the past three years, Changsha Customs has achieved fruitful results in advancing Hunan FTZ construction.

In terms of China-Africa cooperation, the China-Africa trade index was released for the first time at the 3rd China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. It helped the General Administration of Customs in promoting the signing of the first AEO mutual recognition agreement between China and Uganda. The assessment of approval for Tanzanian wild aquatic products, Gambian cashews and other six kinds of products were completed, and Kenyan anchovies were imported for the first time.

As for cultivating new formats, it explored solutions to compliance storage problems of cross-border e-commerce imports of hazardous chemicals commodities under supervision such as perfume. About 70,000 bottles of imported bounded perfume were purchased online between January and August this year.

Thanks to the systematic innovation, Hunan products have been delivered more smoothly out of the province. The Changsha Customs took the lead in inland areas of China in opening a new land transportation channel under the Hunan-Guangdong-Hong Kong Single E-lock Scheme, reducing the transportation time of goods between Hunan, Guangdong and Hong Kong.

By the end of this August, 88 batches of goods were imported and exported between Hunan and Hong Kong through this mode, with a value of 240 million yuan.

The customs initiated a new mode of information-aided supervision of fireworks exports to ensure safe and stable export of fireworks, which increased the efficiency of customs clearance by 20%.

At the same time, the Changsha Customs created China’s first innovative valuation model of excluding imported transit goods inland waterway freight from the duty-paid price, to eliminate the cost gap between inland waterways and costal ports in the tax base.

Since its official implementation in September 2021, it has helped enterprises save 9.662 million yuan of taxes, which has been popularized throughout the country since this May.

The new supervision model for international mail, international express and cross-border e-commerce business has been published and popularized by the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference of the State Council. This was the first national case of Hunan FTZ since its establishment.

A total of 25.59 million items have passed customs clearance at the Changsha Customs from the establishment of Hunan FTZ to the end of this August.

A one-stop service center for foreigners working in China was jointly created, reducing the number of examination and approval procedures by about 50% and compressing the time limit for examination and approval by about 70%.