Customs officers inspect the imported raw bird nests.

Through inspection and quarantine process, Xiamen Customs District cleared 343 kilograms of raw bird nests from Malaysia into Haicang Bonded Port Area, Fujian Province on December 2, marking the largest batch of raw bird nests exported from Malaysia to China since the two countries signed relevant agreement in 2016.

Raw bird nest, without being processed such as heated and dehaired, is at higher quarantine risk. At present, China only permits importing Malaysian raw nests under strict quarantine control. Besides quality and safety standards, the imported raw nests must be packaged by new materials in compliance with international sanitary standard. Both inner and outer package must be sealed. Their outer package must be marked with the “People’s Republic of China” as the destination and the note of “use only for further processing at processing venue”.   

To facilitate the first-batch import into Fujian, Xiamen Customs implemented a regulatory mechanism with the characteristics of bonded port area to the benefit of the bird-nest processing; by coordinating with relevant administrations, it worked out a safety control chain including quarantine approval, declaration processing, document auditing, field inspection and quarantine, warehousing and processing, so as to ensure that all the procedures complied with relevant requirements.

Allegedly, this batch of raw nests will be processed into nest products through the procedures of heating, dehairing, sterilization, and molding on an integrated platform, and the finished products will be labeled with the traceability mark for domestic sales, achieving seamless connection of import sourcing, warehousing, processing and trading.

Xiamen Customs will take advantage of this import transaction to enhance trade facilitation in support of bird-nest industrial development platform.