On July 21, a Korean ship with 100,000 tons of Carajas iron ore fines berthed at Majishan Port in Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province. Thanks to the measure of “unloading and direct partial shipment of released goods” launched by Zhoushan Customs House (affiliated to Hangzhou Customs District), the ship can be loaded and unloaded upon its berthing at the wharf, which greatly improves clearance efficiency.

Zhou Yunliang, Director of Shengsi Office of Zhoushan Customs House, indicated that import goods can be directly declared at the Customs and shipped in batches without being put into the storage yard, thus saving a lot of time as well as loading and unloading costs for importers.

In order to improve clearance efficiency, reduce enterprise’s costs and increase the import of staple resource commodities, Zhoushan Customs House, through an analysis on international iron ore trade and logistics characteristics, has successively introduced new measures such as “unloading and direct partial shipment of released goods” and “taxation and release upon declaration”. In the first half of 2015, imported 27.26 million tons of iron ore has been imported through Zhoushan Port, with year-on-year growth of 11 percent. “Since the implementation of the new measures, more than 10 iron-ore import enterprises have been newly established in Zhoushan, and today, high-efficient customs clearance has become a “golden business card” of Majishan Port,” said Zhu Weifu, Party branch secretary of Majishan Port.

In addition, a series of reforms, including Electronic Tax Payment, Regional Clearance Integration in Yangtze River Economic Belt, Customs-CIQ 3-Singles Cooperation, and Integrated Aggregate Taxation, have been carried out by Zhoushan Customs House this year. On the basis of fully understanding the enterprise’s needs, Customs also promotes a 24-hour on-duty service and 24/7 round-the-clock reservation service to cut berthing and discharging time of ships, thus guaranteeing the smooth clearance of Zhoushang Port. Through those measures, an estimate of more than CNY10 million demurrage charges can be yearly saved  for inward and outward vessels.