The Chinese mainland and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will roll out a series of customs trade-facilitating policies starting next year under the framework of Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), according to a senior customs official.

Gong Zheng, vice-director of the General Administration of Customs, told a news conference yesterday that the Chinese mainland customs and Hong Kong customs will use the same entry and exit cargo inventories of road transportation beginning from January 1, or Thursday.

Currently, the Chinese mainland customs adopts a 22-item inventory format, while Hong Kong uses 23-item, 15 items, or 70 per cent of the items of two formats, are overlapping.

The uniform format will have a total of 39 items, 26 for both mainland and Hong Kong carriers, and another nine and four for them respectively.

At the same time, a mutual acceptance of customs seals and examination results will also been carried out. Any one of the two customs usually will not make further examination or verification of goods, which have been examined and verified by the other customs and get green seals.

Due to different examining standards adopted by the two customs, however, only cigarettes and alcohol carriers will enjoy this preferential policy starting from January, according to Gong.

"Currently, the standards of examination and risk evaluation of the two customs have not come to any uniform agreement. And efforts to unify them will have to be done step by step,'' Gong said.

But he adds that the ultimate goal is for two customs to realize one-stop examination.

The moves to be implemented from January will simplify customs clearance procedures, thus helping ease the road transportation pressure in South China's Guangdong Province.

Meanwhile, the policies are conducive to boosting Hong Kong's exports to the mainland, cementing its leadership as a regional logistic service centre, and enhancing the economic dynamic of the Pearl River Delta, one of China's economic engines, Gong said.

Under the free-trade pact CEPA, signed in June by the central government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and to be implemented in January next year, 273 Hong Kong products will be exempt from tariffs when exported to the mainland.

All Hong Kong products will be subject to zero tariffs by January 2006 upon application by Hong Kong manufacturers.

"We have confirmed the principles for the identification of Hong Kong-originated products, and get prepared for CEPA to take effect,''the vice-director said.

The identification of Hong Kong origin is a key and thorny problem in the implementation of CEPA, experts suggested.

In addition, the General Administration of Customs, along with Hong Kong customs, will deal a hard blow to any abuse of the policies, according to Liu Guangping, head of the administration's Duty Collection Department.

"The unification of inventory formats and information sharing between the two customs, in effect, will help us better control imports and exports. We are confident of safely and smoothly implementing the policies,'' Liu said.

Concerns were raised by some observers that smuggling and tax evasion would ran rampant while Hong Kong's exports increase.

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