Taicang’s growth in imports and exports from January to April took a lead in Suzhou city. Its total trade volume reached $3.93b USD, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%, among which exports were $1.66b USD, up 4.9%, and imports $2.27b USD, an increase of 7.3%.

Faced with a severe foreign trade situation this year, the Customs of Taicang has taken various measures to promote steady trade growth. Its staff conducted research, investigations and surveys to make communication channels smooth, and to have a better understanding of the difficulties and problems encountered by enterprises during their production and port clearance.

They listened to advice and suggestions from enterprises and provided immediate explanations and offered follow-up services and policy support with a special focus. They introduced pilot trials to classify imports and reforms on port clearance, furthered the linkage between Suzhou and Taicang, carried out the policies of custom declarations in advance, and booked port clearance around the clock.

They set up a mechanism to boost sales in the domestic market in processing trade and bonded goods. Thanks to the policy support, vitality has been injected to the stable growth of foreign trade. The foreign trade goods and container handling capacity reached 13.468m tons and 333,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) respectively, a year-on-year increase of 24.7% and 22.5% during the previous four months.