On January 15, 2026, the General Administration of Customs held a press briefing. The Deputy Director of the National Port Management Office of the General Administration of Customs announced a new batch of 25 cross-border trade facilitation measures to be replicated and promoted across the country, releasing stronger momentum to stabilize the quantity and quality of my country’s foreign trade and create new advantages for opening up to the outside world.
According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 14th, my country’s foreign trade import and export in 2025 will be 45.47 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%. Imports and exports with more than 190 countries and regions have increased. The export of high-tech products and the export of “three new products” increased by 13.2% and 27.1% respectively. There are more than 780,000 business entities with import and export records. There are many highlights throughout the year.
High-quality development of foreign trade is inseparable from the continued improvement of trade convenience.
Since 2018, the General Administration of Customs, together with relevant departments, has organized special actions to promote cross-border trade facilitation every year. As of 2024, a total of 115 facilitation measures have been introduced.
From April to September 2025, 20 departments including the General Administration of Customs and the Ministry of Commerce benchmarked against advanced international standards and actively responded to the demands of enterprises. They launched a five-month special campaign to facilitate cross-border trade in 25 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, and launched 29 pilot innovative policies and measures, which achieved positive results.
The results of the questionnaire survey showed that 98% of the enterprises were satisfied with the special actions, demonstrating the continuous optimization of my country’s port business environment.
This special action has brought many positive impacts.
In terms of helping the market increase confidence, by expanding the pilot application of “two certificates in one” for imported motor vehicles, 460,000 certificates were issued, and work efficiency increased by more than 80%; during the special operation, 461.58 billion yuan was exported through market procurement trade, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%.
In terms of helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, the policy dividends of active disclosure were released, and tax late payment fees were reduced and exempted by 20.961 million yuan for qualified enterprises; the pilot of the “first inspection before shipment” model for export LCL goods was actively expanded, which increased the overall efficiency of exports by 30% and reduced logistics costs by nearly 20%.
In terms of helping the business environment continue to improve, we will continue to optimize the visa-free policy, further expand the scope of visa-free countries, and help “China Travel” and “China Shopping” continue to heat up.
The international trade “single window” realizes electronic data exchange such as certificates of origin and inspection and quarantine certificates with 15 countries (regions).
The State Council executive meeting held on December 31, 2025, put forward new requirements for further promoting the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, optimizing the supervision of special commodities, supporting comprehensive bonded zones to carry out bonded inspection services, and improving the level of intelligent supervision services.
In order to implement the spirit of this meeting, further release policy dividends, and help achieve a good start in the “15th Five-Year Plan”, after summary and evaluation, it was decided to replicate and promote 25 of the more mature policy measures in five aspects across the country.
Specifically, it includes promoting the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, supporting the development of new business formats and new models, optimizing the supervision model of special commodities, improving the level of intelligent supervision services, and enhancing the effectiveness of benefiting enterprises and convenience for the people.
As a new foreign trade format with the fastest development speed, the greatest potential and the strongest driving force, cross-border e-commerce has become an important trend in the development of international trade and a new driving force for China’s foreign trade development.
In the past, companies needed to achieve sales before they could apply for export tax rebates, which often took a long time.
In order to help export companies clear up capital blockages, allow companies to “replenish blood” in their wallets faster, and significantly increase the capital turnover rate, cross-border e-commerce export goods to overseas warehouses have relevant policies of “tax refund upon departure and accounting after sale” to shorten the tax refund cycle for companies and reduce the pressure on companies’ capital turnover.
The second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce said that in the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to strengthen overall coordination, strengthen central and local coordination, and create an institutional environment conducive to the development of new business forms and new models and an open, inclusive and fair development environment by improving support policies, strengthening the cultivation of entities, and actively participating in international cooperation, and promote the healthy, sustainable and innovative development of cross-border e-commerce.
In addition, my country has also further promoted the construction of a “single window” for international trade to help enterprises achieve “one-stop processing” of the entire chain and links of cross-border trade business.
At present, the “Single Window” has built a “one-stop” comprehensive service platform, realizing system docking with 30 departments (units), providing 1,010 services in 25 categories, including cargo declaration, inspection and quarantine, tax processing, export tax rebates, and cross-border e-commerce, covering all major links in the entire process of international trade.
