BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's trade with Belt and Road countries increased 13.2 percent to reach 6.08 trillion yuan (880 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three quarters of 2018, said Li Kuiwen, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), at a press conference on October 12.
The growth of China's trade with B&R countries in the first three quarters outstripped China's overall foreign trade growth by 3.3 percentage points, and the trade volume accounted for 27.3 percent of China's total trade value, up 0.8 percentage point, according to Li.
In a breakdown, China's exports to B&R countries in this period were 3.38 trillion yuan (490 billion U.S. dollars), up 7.7 percent on year, and imports were 2.7 trillion yuan (390 billion U.S. dollars), up 20.9 percent on year.
Li said that in the future, the GACC planned to take a series of new measures to further support the B&R construction, which includes three major tasks.
First, the GACC vows to improve the coordination and liaison and deepen the customs clearance cooperation with countries along the B&R routes, relying on platforms such as Forum for Heads of Customs Administrations along the Belt and Road, and high-level seminar on international inspection and quarantine cooperation along the Belt and Road.
At present, the GACC has established cooperation relationship with customs and relative departments of 61 B&R countries. In the first three quarters of this year, a total of 64 cooperation agreements were signed.
Second, the GACC will introduce more policies to facilitate the development of China-Europe cargo trains. It will provide more efficient and convenient customs clearance services for the cargo trains, promote the implementation and international mutual recognition of the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) scheme, and expand the application of "green channel", rapid customs clearance of agricultural products.
Third, it will support the construction of international logistics channels, such as the China-Singapore Connectivity Initiative (CCI) Southern Transport Corridor and Zhengzhou-Luxembourg Air Silk Road, to promote efficient and seamless sea, land and air transportation, by formulating plans to cooperate with important ports along the B&R routes and optimizing the customs supervision mode. (Edited by Li Wenxin, Yang Qi, liwenxin@xinhua.org)
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