A new "enter first, declare later" policy has been adopted by the Cross-border Air Transport Management and Service Center at Shanghai Free Trade Zone.

The FTZ and Shanghai Customs have agreed the center can apply for declaration of goods arriving for FTZ businesses and ship them straight to enterprises’ warehouses, thus saving time and costs.

A direct beneficiary of the new policy, the Weidmuller Group's Shanghai branch was able to achieve delivery and shipping on the same day.

The company operates an 8,000-square-meter Asia Pacific logistics center with inventory of 14,000 items. The new policy allows it to ship its goods to the airport in eight hours, even faster than its European headquarters.

Local Shanghai pharmaceutical company WuXi AppTec Group is also a beneficiary of the approach.

With 600 monthly shipments, mainly R & D reagents that require timely delivery and low-temperature storage, WuXi Group can receive products in the shortest possible time.

Other pharmaceutical companies, such as Novartis China and Abbot Laboratories, have also benefitted from the more timely declaration procedures.

The service center plans to apply the new approach to all businesses in the FTZ. It has so far helped 78 companies and handled about 160,000 declarations worth about US$ 25.8 billion.

Source:.china-shftz.gov.cn