Shanghai Customs boosted local foreign trade by 2.7 percent last year through a set of reform measures even though foreign trade shrank by an average of 0.9 percent nationwide.

Customs officials said they adopted 31 reform policies with 21 being copied by other cities in China. Shanghai Free Trade Zone now practices 55 of the 60 trade facilitation measures used worldwide.

So far, Shanghai Customs has cut clearance procedures and clearance time by 79.1 percent and 11 percent respectively and lowered import costs by an average of 10 percent for FTZ enterprises, the officials said.

Shanghai Customs also took lead in the trial of national integration of customs services. The unified customs clearance system managed to reduce clearance time by 10 hours on average and release 72.4 percent of cargos within 24 hours, up 12 percentage points.

The customs department also cooperated with the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authorities to set up a joint service center for cargo owners, which saw goods declarations surge by 30.2 times last year.

Paperless clearance now accounts for 93.4 percent of all cargoes through Shanghai Customs, which also adopted big data and Internet of Things technologies to improve trade supervision and prevent corruption.

Source: Shanghai FTZ Government.cn