Cost relating to customs clearance and declaration has reduced drastically due to reforms carried out around the country on July 1 and enterprises in Taicang are reaping huge benefits.

Thanks to the smooth operation and integration of various procedures after the reform, the efficiency of customs clearance has improved- with the Taicang customs, in Jiangsu province having dealt with over 19,000 declarations.

The improved efficiency is due to simplified clearance procedures where a system of one declaration and step-by-step disposition is implemented in customs clearance.

Enterprises only need to make one declaration. Then the dependent customs will handle the affairs involving taxes step by step after the port customs checks the security access risk.

Collection and management of taxes has also changed greatly. Before the reform, customs examines and determines the tax elements declared by enterprises, before verifying their tax payables. Now, all the work is done by the enterprises themselves, and what the customs need to do is to have a random check.

The declaration time now takes seconds to complete online. Enterprises can arrange for a staff to go to customs and print tax receipts after paying the tax online. And then release procedures will be carried out.

Li Yuanyuan, senior manager of international trade department of Procter & Gamble (Greater China) Co, said that their average customs clearance time has reduced by over 70 percent after the reforms.. It means their cargos can be brought into production and sale in a faster speed. It really saves money and time.

Ma Li, head of Taicang division of Suzhou Industrial Park Customs Broker Co, said that they do feel a more efficient, unified, and open clearance environment. Now, the overall clearance time can almost be shortened by half day.

She added that brokers do not need to deploy customs declarers to go to the customs to hand in paper documents, and it saves human and stationery cost. At present, the number of customs declarers waiting at customs office has reduced from four to two and printing cost has reduced by 30 percent.

The unified environment referred to by Ma was created by the Risk Prevention and Control Center and Tax Collection and Management Center set up by the customs throughout the country.

With the help of the two centers, key businesses in customs clearance will be handled in a centralized, unified, and intelligent way.

According to a Taicang customs officer, since all the customs around the country adopt the same law enforcement and supervision standards, it is convenient for companies to declare cargos at any customs.

Taicang Port has become the choice of many enterprises in inland provinces after it implemented the reforms clearance integration procedure. For example, a graphite company in Chenzhou, Hunan province declared 3,000 tons (3 million kilograms) graphite nodules at Chenzhou customs and chose Taicang Port as its transit port to export them in July.