This January, in Altay of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Jeminay port was in cold season but its Customs-controlled storage yard was in full play: several container trucks laden with frozen fishes, cargo owners and porters were busy with unloading, and boxes of preserved frozen fish were being conveyed into cold stores.

According to Fang Rui, officer of Altay Customs House(affiliated to Urumqi Customs District ), from each October till next March, Jeminay port gets a peak volume of inward frozen fishes, accounting for 90% of such import to Xinjiang. In 2015, this port brought in a total of 1,071.9 tons of frozen fishes, worth USD1,536,000, up 293.7% and 283.1% respectively year-on-year.

Jeminay port, adjacent to Kazakhstan’s Zaysan County, is only 100 kilometers away to Lake Zaysan, a water area of 5,500 square kilometers rich in breams, perches and pikes and with frozen fish production about 5,000 tons/year. Due to low price and fine quality, the fishes from there are becoming popular on the Chinese market.

Initially, the import of frozen fishes was scattered and non-standardized. Through long-distance transport, frozen fishes were all unpackaged and disordered in containers, vulnerable to deterioration and thus cheap in price. However, Altay Customs House actively helped the importers and exporters standardize fish freezing, preservation, packaging, transport and storage to meet the requirements by domestic market.

What’s more, the Customs provided a fast track specially for frozen fish import. Seeing short shelf life of the products, the Customs worked closely with local inspection-quarantine agency in “single declaration, single inspection and single release” cooperation mode to provide around-the-clock reservation and priority for the clearance.

 Altay Customs officers were inspecting inward frozen fishes at Jeminay port.