Customs inspection of sea-railway container exchange

On November 18, about 20.7 tons of almonds were reloaded from a sea container into a railway container within 4 hours in a control area of Qingdao Customs and, after the reloading, the railway container was put onto a CRE train and transited to Kustanay, Kazakhstan within a week.

As a new measure this year, China Customs allows enterprises to exchange between sea container and railway container in customs control areas. Specifically, under the “Belt and Road” Initiative, the GACC has rolled out 10 measures to support China Railway Express (CRE) transportation, including reduction in declaration frequency, further construction of hubs, and promotion of multimodal transport. Qingdao Customs accordingly refines those measures with the aim of business climate improvement and cross-border trade facilitation.    

Regarding CRE multimodal transport, Qingdao Customs upholds sea-railway container exchange in customs control areas lest sea containers should be in shortage and the container freight fee should be too high.

According to statistics, from January till October, Qingdao Customs has conducted over 200 container exchanges in customs control areas and saved over 4 million yuan in business cost.