C. China's Hunan reports sharp increase in foreign trade in 2016-2020

Central China's Hunan Province saw its foreign trade amount to 1.64 trillion yuan during China's 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), up 22.76 percent from the previous five-year period, with the foreign trade ranking improved from the 19th in 2016 to the 14th in 2020 in China, reported by Shanghai Securities News on last Saturday.

During the13th Five-Year Plan period, Changsha Customs' supervision business volume increased significantly and fruitful results have been achieved in terms of strengthening inspection and quarantine, port supervision, and maintaining national security.

In total, the Changsha Customs have supervised 130 million tonnes of import and export cargo, collected 50.183-billion-yuan taxes, and investigated 265 smuggling cases in the period.

In recent years, the business environment at ports in Hunan Province has continued to be optimized, and the overall customs clearance time for imports and exports has been greatly reduced. By the end of 2020, there were 19,400 registered import and export enterprises in the province and the level of technological innovation and application of port clearance has been greatly improved, with a batch of modern supervision equipment being put into use.

In 2021, Changsha Customs will continue to strengthen tax investigations, implement preferential tax policies, implement measures to promote the transformation and upgrading of processing trade, actively participate in the formulation of technical standards for import and export commodities, and explore new regulatory models for trade with Africa, said Li Quan, director of Changsha Customs.