Customs clearance time at the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone is much shorter as the average time for import and export was reduced by 78.5 percent and 31.7 percent respectively, compared with areas outside the FTZ.

At Shanghai ports, customs clearance time this year was cut by 3.68 hours in import and 2.17 hours in export, compared with last year.

The customs divides cargoes into different categories to improve storage operation efficiency with digital supervision.

The new policy attracted more companies to be registered at the Shanghai Customs FTZ branch. About 14,000 companies have been newly registered at the customs in the zone since the FTZ was founded three years ago, making the total reach 24,000.

The customs also works hard to attract cross-border e-commerce companies and biomedicine research and development centers.

The city's cross-border e-commerce companies imported bonded products valued at 400 million yuan (US$59.7 million) in the first eight months, 80 percent of which were cosmetics, dairy products and diapers. The bonded imports value in August alone reached more than 100 million yuan with a fast growing trend.

Source: Shanghai FTZ Government.cn