Xinjiang witnesses consumption power of Belt and Road

The Singles Day e-commerce spending spree on Nov. 11 had global ramifications. Customers from countries along the Belt and Road routes took advantage of the once-in-a-year sale. It is a very busy period for Xinjiang Customs, through which most of the packages leave China.

Xinjiang customs has sent officials to the Best Logistics (Xinjiang) Cross-border Customs Clearance Center in Urumqi to enable the center to remain open around the clock throughout the week to handle the extra express deliveries.

The center received more than 200,000 packages related to the Singles Day sales, mainly filled with batteries, chargers, flashlights, cosmetics and other such goods. Most came from Guangzhou and Shenzhen, in South China’s Guangdong province, as well as Yiwu in East China’s Zhejiang province, and are destined for Russia and Central Asian countries.

According to the center, it typically takes seven to eight hours, 24 hours at most, for these goods to clear customs. In the future, it will also handle imported goods for domestic consumers such as food, cosmetics, milk powder and household supplies from Central and West Europe and agricultural products from Central Asia.

Urumqi, Karamay and Khorgos in Xinjiang have initiated the cross-border e-commerce retail export-import operation since 2016. Xinjiang now boasts five sorting and customs clearance centers.