SCIO press conference on China Customs' efforts to safeguard borders, advance Chinese modernization
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 24, 2023
Shou Xiaoli:
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Please identify the media organization you work for before asking your questions.
CCTV:
China is the world's largest trading country in goods. What are the main challenges that the GACC is facing during its supervision work? How will you respond to these challenges? Thank you.
Yu Jianhua:
Thank you for your questions. It's often said that customs is the gateway to a country. As China opens wider to the outside world, the GACC will have an increasing responsibility to safeguard the entrance to the country.
In 2022, China's foreign trade exceeded 42 trillion yuan, hitting a record high in the history of trade and putting unprecedented pressure on the supervision work of customs authorities. Last year, the total freight volume of imports and exports under customs supervision reached 4.8 billion metric tons. We deployed a total of 13 million transportation vehicles including cargo ships, airplanes and freight trains, and supervised 320 million pieces of cross-border mail. Figuratively speaking, if we put all of these imported and exported goods on a freight train end to end, it would circle the equator 30 times; if we put all of the cargo containers end to end, it would make two rows between the Earth and the moon. This fully demonstrates China's momentum as the world's largest trading country in goods, and represents China's contribution to the world as well as the responsibilities and challenges for the GACC in its supervision efforts.
The huge quantity is one thing. On the other hand, in terms of the object of the GACC's services, the number of import and export enterprises registered with the GACC reached 1.85 million, three times that of 10 years ago. There are more and more enterprises engaged in trade. In terms of types of trade, in addition to general trade and processing trade, there are many new emerging business models such as cross-border e-commerce and market purchases.
In terms of supervisory responsibilities, in addition to preventing epidemic diseases, such as COVID-19 and African swine fever, we should also prevent the invasion of alien species such as red imported fire ants and desert locusts; in addition to testing iron ore and dangerous chemicals, we should also ensure the safety of imported and exported food; in addition to cracking down on foreign garbage and drug trafficking, we should also search for "problematic maps" and illegal propaganda materials in postal parcels; and in addition to detecting concealed ivory and other cultural relics, we should also prevent the entry of mice, cockroaches and other pests hidden in cargo containers. In 2022, customs across China identified 55,000 positive cases of COVID-19, intercepted 580,000 pests, supervised 590 million metric tons of imported and exported dangerous chemicals, returned and destroyed 2,900 batches of defective food and cosmetics, and seized 1.2 million prohibited items of all kinds and 2.8 metric tons of drugs. If we fail to steadfastly hold these fronts, there will be severe consequences.
You just asked what our main challenges are. In face of the super-sized trading scale, various kinds of trading models, demanding regulatory requirements and significant security concerns, how can we ensure "effective controls, moderate relaxation and quick clearance?" I believe these are the main challenges we are facing.
Of course, having challenges is not a bad thing. Instead, it is a driving force to promote reform and innovation of customs. We will adhere to the Party's comprehensive leadership over the GACC, insist on customs reform toward socialist modernization, take the driving role of both reform and technology, and vigorously promote the construction of "smart customs." We will take smart customs as a starting point to promote customs reform and modernization, and build world-class customs that leads the trend of international customs supervision and serves our country's high-quality development. We will strive to realize digital, automated and smart customs clearance and management, continuously improve supervision efficiency, strengthen the three lines of defense in and outside China and at ports, build a customs operation mechanism featuring "response, correspondence and reaction," and foster an all-round and whole-chain supervision system. At the same time, we should clearly recognize that fighting corruption is a common task facing customs authorities all over the world. Therefore, the GACC should not relax for a moment. We should resolutely eliminate the black sheep who "rely on customs and live off customs," continue sounding the bugle, and forge a loyal, clean and responsible high-quality customs team, to comprehensively improve the modernization of the customs governance system and governance capacity, and write a new chapter for customs along the Chinese path to modernization. Thank you.
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