According to Hefei Customs statistics, in 2020, Hefei-based China Railway Express (CRE), by overcoming the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, ran 568 international freight trains and transported 46,534 TEUs of goods, with cargo value of 12.14 billion yuan, respectively up 54.4%, 35.2% and 27.4% year-on-year; its key indicators such as cargo value, cargo weight, load factor and return-trip ratio were in the lead across China. By now, Hefei CRE has opened 33 international routes to a total of 10 countries and 35 nodal cities, connecting to domestic major railway ports of exit.     

Notably, Hefei CRE launched a cooperation mode of “Hefei-Xinjiang-Europe+postal transport” in 2020. During the epidemic period, 14 pieces and 4 tons of international mails from Finland were transited via Hefei CRE to Shanghai under the customs control; meanwhile, Hefei CRE was integrated with bonded warehousing mode and cross-border e-commerce import/export, respectively.    

In order to facilitate the CRE clearance, Hefei Customs collaborates with local railway administration in train/cargo inspection and release; by using international trade “Single Window”, optimizes information sharing, data exchange and operational workflow to improve clearance efficiency; provides measures such as self-choice of declaration place and manifest consolidation to facilitate the process, and conducts “advance declaration, clearance on arrival”, to fast clear CRE trains without delay.