Customs seizure of smuggled-out charcoal

Recently, through its campaign against charcoal smuggling, Qingdao Customs District verified 700 tons of charcoal involved in outward smuggling from Shandong Province, with about 100 tons and 11 smuggling suspects seized in the field.

As a typical high energy-consuming, high-pollution, and low value-added product, charcoal is banned by the state from exportation. It is believed that such 700 tons of charcoal was made at the consumption of at least 3,500 tons of wood, doing serious harm to forest resources. 

In 2004, China’s Ministry of Commerce, General Administration of Customs and National Forestry Administration jointly announced the ban on the export of charcoal that is made from wood (except bamboo). In 2014, China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly announced that smuggling environment/resources-detrimental goods or articles such as charcoal and silica sand, not less than 10 tons in quantity, constitutes the crime of smuggling the goods or articles that are banned by the state from export and import.