"Promotion of trade facilitation is the shared goal of customs and the business community,'' said State Councilor Wu. She made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the seventh APEC Customs-Business Dialogue (ACBD), whose theme was "The New Economy--Moving Customs-Business Partnership and Trade Facilitation to the Next Level.''

Wu emphasized the importance of strengthening the partnership between the customs and business community and promoting trade facilitation.

She added that trade facilitation requires not only internal reform and modernization of customs and other government departments, but also facilitation, high-speed and low cost transportation, port authorities, finance, as well as insurance and trade services from the business community in shipping, cargo agency and customs brokerage.

"After entry into the WTO, China will adopt an all-around opening policy rather than the existing opening in limited fields and regions,'' said Wu. "China is now busy sorting out, revising and improving relative laws and regulations so as to establish a legal system in accordance with international rules and practices.''

She believes that China customs authorities have made many beneficial explorations in the areas of advancing trade efficiency and facilitating enterprises in recent years.

Statistics show that within two decades, from 1979 to 2000, China's foreign trade volume increased from US$20 billion to over US$470 billion, a more than twenty fold jump.

Wu Yi revealed that China Customs has improved the efficiency of customs clearance while tightening control and enhancing the publicity and transparency of law enforcement.

Customs is actively advancing the construction of the "E-port Law Enforcement System'' to facilitate the business handling of import and export related formalities on the net, giving full play to the overall effectiveness of port law enforcement, lowering trade costs and improving trade efficiency.

Measures are also being implemented to simplify customs clearance and support the development of high-and-new technologies, including the reform of transit control, establishment of a national speedy clearance system and a pilot project on export processing zones.

Mu Xinsheng, director of the General Administration of Customs of China, said that customs has, in close collaboration with other government agencies, worked out 10 facilitation measures, creating a "Green Channel'' to ensure freer movement of import and export goods from large and high-tech enterprises.

In August, China Customs launched a nationwide pilot project named "2R(Rivers) & 2H(Highways),'' characterized by speedy customs clearance in the Yangtze River and Pearl River valleys, and also on the highways of Guangdong province and from Shanghai to Jiangsu Province, substantially improving the clearance speed for goods in transit.

Mu said, "China Customs will establish "E-Customs'' and "E-Port'' to offer better quality services. We will strive to become a world leader in the administration in terms of customs modernization in the Tenth Five-Year Plan.''

In order to have a full exchange of opinions, three concurrent sessions were held after the plenary ones.

Topics included: advancing customs trade facilitation strategies to meet new challenges, the implications of E-Commerce and paperless trading on customs and business, and the convergence of customs and business -- "our shared goal in maintaining economic competitiveness."

(China Daily August 14, 2001)