With the promotion of China Merchants Western Port Area and the great support from Shekou Customs, from August 22nd, 2014 on, Shekou Customs District (5304) started its trial of paperless customs clearance for import, which pioneered the applications of paperless customs clearance from only for export to for import also. The test run of paperless import customs clearance would be first operated among processing trade companies (manual declaration companies), and then gradually expand to general import trade declaration.

When paperless customs clearance implements, companies could directly send electronic customs declaration to customs without summiting paper documents. If it is indentified as the low-risk declaration by the customs system, all operations of the cargo would be automatically completed by the H2000 system and directly get clearance for import, which will save many procedures. The whole process will be done by computer in a few minutes, which greatly saves the cost of labor and time for companies in summiting paper documents to the customs and back.

Paperless customs clearance is the general direction for the reform of customs clearance, which will play a positive role in simplifying the procedures and improving the efficiency of customs clearance.