The capital city of South China's Guangdong
Province is planning to monitor imports by foreign-owned and
-invested companies to prevent smuggling, an official said.
"The city has caught many foreign-owned and -invested companies
involved in smuggling. The value of the goods involved was not
negligible," Li Zhizhen, deputy director of Guangzhou
Anti-Smuggling and Comprehensive Treatment Office, said
yesterday.
In addition to resorting to traditional methods of smuggling
like using fake or deceptive customs declarations and hiding
smuggled goods inside commodities some companies have been taking
advantage of new trade patterns and lagging anti-smuggling rules,
the official said.
"It is likely that smuggling will run rampant in tandem with
China's economic globalization," he said. "Standardizing the rules
governing such enterprises will become the focus of anti-smuggling
work in the city."
Li said the city would also gear up efforts to crack down on
smuggling by water and through the ports, while keeping a close eye
on wholesale and retail markets across the city.
Refined oil, auto parts, high-tech goods like computer
peripherals, photosensitive materials and drugs are among the goods
being smuggled into the city, he said.
Guangzhou's proximity to Hong Kong, Macao and several Southeast
Asian countries, the convenience of its water routes, its
flourishing market and its well-developed logistics system have all
combined to make the city a hot bed of smuggling, he said.
Official statistics show that the authorities have cracked over
58,000 smuggling cases since 1981, when the city's anti-smuggling
office was set up. Smuggled goods worth 4.5 billion yuan (US$554.87
million) have been confiscated in the past 25 years.
The authorities have cracked 12,600 cases involving goods
without legal origin, representing goods worth over 800 million
(US$98.64 million), in the 25 years.
Pang Xiaozhong, an associate researcher at the Guangzhou Academy
of Social Sciences, said anti-smuggling work would remain
complicated in Guangzhou because the city has long been a popular
transit point for smugglers.
(China Daily December 28, 2006)