Zhangjiagang, a coastal city in the Yangtze River economic belt region, has expanded 14 customs reforms of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone over three months, bringing flexibility and convenience for the customs department, freight forwarder companies, and import and export enterprises.

Wu Qinggang, a customs declarant of a freight forwarder company, said that he benefited most from the reform on paperless declaration attached documents, which allows customs declarants to send digital copies of documents of power of attorney to the customs department, instead of requiring them to send a string of scanned documents, such as contracts, receipts and bills of landing. The reform has saved Wu's company more than four hours each day.

According to Wu Hong, director of the customs declaration office of Shun De Industry (Jiangsu) Co, an integrated customs declaration model helps them save sizeable costs. "We have about 20 batches of cargo for customs declaration every month. In the past, we used to pay 150 yuan ($24.48) to a customs declaration agency for each batch. But now, the batches of cargoes can be declared at one time at the end of a month, and we only have to pay 150 yuan in total, cutting our expenses by 20 times," said Wu.

In addition, an automatic customs clearance system also has improved customs clearance efficiency by automatically identifying, checking and allowing vehicles to pass through customs. It shortens the clearance procedure from five minutes to 10 seconds. By promoting the Shanghai FTZ experience in Zhangjiagang, the city’s free trade zone has witnessed a monthly increase of 5 percent in cargo volume since August 2014. In the past 11 months, the imported and exported cargoes topped 10.42 million tons, up 8.5 percent compared with the same period last year.