In order to improve the environment for foreign investment, Guangdong Province is continuing to speed up and make convenient its customs procedure, according to the Guangdong branch of the General Administration of Customs.
"We will conduct an online declaration of customs throughout Guangdong Province in June, which is expected to speed up the customs procedure," said Sha Shaojuan, deputy director of the branch, yesterday.
"Customs at Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Huangpu, which began to provide foreign investors with online declarations on April 1, have achieved a much more efficient customs practice."
Thanks to online declarations, the time taken by land-freight from Guangdong Province to Hong Kong decreased from 45 minutes three years ago to 8 minutes this year, said the deputy director.
Guangdong Customs is also promoting "online supervision" of processing trade enterprises throughout the province.
"The customs branch and the Guangdong Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation will establish an online platform connecting all processing trade enterprises in the province to supervise their business," Sha said.
According to statistics from the Guangdong Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, in the first quarter of the year, Guangdong Province attracted actual foreign investment of US$2.24 billion, an increase of 10.7 percent compared with the same period last year.
(China Daily April 27, 2002)
