On October 21, Vice Minister Zou Zhiwu met with Mr. Antti Hartikainen, Director General, and Mr. Jarkko Saksa, Deputy Director General of Finnish Customs in Helsinki. Both sides jointly evaluated and positively commented on the customs cooperation between the two countries.

Vice Minister Zou put forward five suggestions on strengthening bilateral cooperation. Firstly, taking the opportunity of the new bilateral cooperation Action Plan, China and Finland Customs should continue to improve the cooperation mechanism, and expand the cooperation in trade statistics. Secondly, the two administrations should further deepen the cooperation in law enforcement for substantive cooperation results in such fields as solid waste control, mutual assistance in verifications and investigations, intellectual property rights protection and anti-fraud. Thirdly, both sides should strengthen the education and training cooperation to improve capacity-building. Fourthly, the two sides should be deeply involved in the China-EU customs cooperation, promoting bilateral trade security and facilitation. Fifthly, both sides should strengthen the cooperation under the framework of the World Customs Organization, and support capacity building projects and international law enforcement operations.

Vice Minister Zou and Mr. Antti Hartikainen signed the Cooperation Action Plan Between the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China and the Finnish Customs 2016-2018. Accompanied by Mr. Antti Hartikainen, Vice Minister Zou paid a visit to KONE Elevator Limited, and was briefed on the company’s current status and its cooperation with Finnish Customs.

On the same day, Vice Minister Zou met with Chinese Ambassador to Finland Mr. Yu Qingtai, briefed on the progress of China-Finland customs cooperation, and expressed his appreciation to the embassy for its support to customs cooperation.