Online Interview
Topic: Support for Hengqin New Area Opening-up and Development to Promote Guangdong's Economic Integration with Hong Kong and Macao SARs
Time:10:00 AM (Wed) March 26, 2014
Special Guests:Guests: Xiong Zhenguo, Deputy Director General of Gongbei Customs District; Wu Yirong, Director of Hengqin Customs House, Gongbei Customs District; Zhou Xiaolei, Deputy Director of the Processing-Trade Supervision Division, Gongbei Customs District;
Online Interview Photos
Support for Hengqin New Area Opening-up and Development to Promote Guangdong's Economic Integration with Hong Kong and Macao SARs
[Wu Yirong]: Specifically, except for taking up or carrying bonded, duty-exempted or tax refunded goods within the island, the island residents, tourists and vehicles are free to come in or go out of Hengqin Island from the “second-line” check point at Hengqin Bridge, without their normal activities being disturbed; however, the Customs still have the right to inspect the goods or articles. 03/21/2014 10:13:40
[Wang Hua]: Suppose that a resident in Zhuhai goes to Macao SAR through Hengqin Port and brings two cans of milk powder back, can he go through the green channel? Mr. Wu, would you please say something about it? 03/21/2014 10:14:14
[Wu Yirong]: From Macao to Hengqin, people go through the “first line”. Supervision is carried out according to the existing administrative regulations on entry and exit of luggage and articles carried by passengers. Generally, if a passenger (not a passenger with multiple trips at the same day) just carries two cans of milk powder as he enters Hengqin, and the amount of powder he carries is within the reasonable range for self-use, he can choose the green channel, while the Customs have the inspection right. Upon entry, he doesn’t need to go through any formality at the second line. Inspection and release for luggage and articles carried by passengers who go inward or outward through the first-line port of Hengqin are the same to the practices in other ports such as Gongbei Customs. 03/21/2014 10:14:47
[Wang Hua]: I heard that for convenience of the residents, no physical fence is set up in Hengqin New Area. Such a large island is open. Are you confident in having it under control and progress in order? 03/21/2014 10:14:56
[Zhou Xiaolei]: The State Council points out clearly in its approval of relevant policies concerning development of Hengqin Island that “no isolation fence is set up around Hengqin Island; instead round-island patrol and monitoring facilities are established to ensure effective supervision.” To this end, we made use of natural conditions of Hengqin Island as it is surrounded by water, and built the round-island monitoring system to carry out intelligent monitoring of inshore vessels. Meanwhile, we also take measures such as round-island patrol, intelligent checkpoints, and electronic account management to ensure effective supervision. 03/21/2014 10:15:23
[Zhou Xiaolei]: It should be pointed out particularly that in order to avoid any impact on the overall environment of Hengqin Island, we carried out several field surveys around the island. After repeated experiments, we deployed only 67 monitoring sites with 232 monitoring devices, and realized the real-time, all-weather intelligent monitoring with full HD display and without blind spots in the 53km-long coastal area of Hengqin Island, which covers an area of106 km2. Without special reminding, you won’t feel existence of such monitoring facilities. 03/21/2014 10:16:21
[Zhou Xiaolei]: We also built up a modern command center for round-island monitoring. It is not only the information processing center but also an emergency command center of the monitoring system around the island. The front-end monitoring information is all collected here. Through technologies like big data mining and intelligent video analysis, we can achieve automatic detection of unusual circumstances such as suspected smuggling or breaches. 03/21/2014 10:17:12
[Zhou Xiaolei]: When abnormality occurs, warning lights are flickering immediately in the virtual map on the big HD screen and the real-time video on the site is shown on the big screen. The monitoring command center sends people to the site through the command dispatching system to ensure effective management. 03/21/2014 10:17:25
[Wang Hua]: As Mr. Xiong just mentioned, Hengqin enjoys special tax preferential policies granted by the Central Government. I think many enterprises are very concerned about those policies. Mr. Zhou, would you tell something specific about them? 03/21/2014 10:18:20
[Zhou Xiaolei]: All right. Now Hengqin New Area enjoys mainly four tax preferential policies of “duty exemption, bond, tax refund and selective tax levy”. “Duty free” and bond” mean that for production-related goods entering Hengqin from outside China, the registration management is made as long as those goods are not specified in the List of Goods without Duty Exemption at the First Line or the List of Goods without Bond at the First Line, and those goods are under coverage of policies on duty exemption or bond. For the two Lists mentioned, you can visit the website of the Ministry of Finance for “CAIGUANSHUI [2013] No. 17 Document”. 03/21/2014 10:19:57