Welcoming policy support again, the “combination punch” of facilitation is releasing new momentum for foreign trade.
The General Administration of Customs held a press briefing on the 15th. Xie Fang, 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. This will release stronger momentum for stabilizing the quantity and quality of my country’s foreign trade and creating 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, and there are many highlights throughout the year.
The high-quality development of foreign trade is inseparable from the continuous 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, actively responded to the demands of enterprises, and launched a five-month special campaign to facilitate cross-border trade in 25 cities including Beijing and Shanghai. They launched 29 pilot innovative policy measures and achieved positive results.
The special action has brought positive impacts in many aspects.
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, made arrangements and 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, after summary and evaluation, it was decided to replicate and promote 25 of the more mature policies and measures in five aspects across the country.
Specifically, in terms of promoting the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, there are 7 measures including deepening the coordination of multimodal transport in and out of coastal, inland and border areas, supporting the development of the “Aerial Silk Road”, and optimizing the operation mode of air cargo terminals; in terms of supporting the development of new business forms and new models, there are 5 measures including supporting air transport of charged goods and exploring cross-border mutual recognition of electronic certification and electronic signatures.
In addition, there are 4 measures each to optimize the special commodity supervision model and improve the level of smart supervision services, as well as 5 measures to enhance the effectiveness of benefiting enterprises and people, including supporting the convenient and preferential cross-border transportation of agricultural products such as vegetables from the mainland to Hong Kong and Macao, and continuing to optimize visa policies.
Cross-border e-commerce, as the new foreign trade format with the fastest development speed, the greatest potential and the strongest driving effect, has become an important trend in the development of international trade and a new driving force for the development of China’s foreign trade.
Cross-border e-commerce policies related to “tax refunds for goods exported from overseas warehouses after leaving the country and accounting after sales” shorten the tax refund cycle for enterprises and reduce the pressure on enterprises’ capital turnover.
Chang Hui, a second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will strengthen overall coordination with relevant departments, strengthen central and local coordination, and promote the healthy, sustainable and innovative development of cross-border e-commerce.
At the same time, our country is also deeply promoting 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.
