General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed during his inspection trip to Jilin Province that active measures should be taken to get involved in the joint construction of “Belt and Road” Initiative, create an important window and a central hub for China’s northward opening up and regional cooperation in Northeast Asia, and promote the connectivity and cooperation with such major regional development strategies as Coordinated Development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. 

As a “new highland” of opening up to the outside world and a “pilot field” of reform of Jilin Province, Changchun Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area with General Secretary Xi Jinping’s solicitous instructions kept in mind has been taking actions to make breakthroughs in changes and exploring new paths of development and opening up. 

In Midsummer, the import port for complete vehicles at the Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area is still very busy. It shows that Changchun, as an old industrial base in Northeast China, is becoming more dynamic for opening up to the outside world.  

From the evening of July 26, 1,000 imported Audi cars will be transported to Changchun by Sino-Euro Train (Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe) Line. This is made possible on the basis of last year’s successful testing of the special train for FAW-Audi complete vehicles, and the advantage of “complete vehicle import port plus special customs supervision plus channel node construction” effectively utilized by Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area. This is the first large-scale transportation for this year, which will lay a solid foundation for the approval of a parallel import vehicle pilot in Changchun City. 

168 Imported Audi Cars Arrived in Changchun 

On July 27 at the port supervision area, containers were arranged in order for inspection. “This is the first batch covering 84 Audi cars, which left Bremen Germany on July 7 and arrived in Changchun late evening on July 26,” said the person in charge of Changchun International Land Port Development Co., Ltd. with excitement, adding, “In the past, it took more than 30 days from Germany to Dalian Port by sea. Plus short transportation and customs clearance, it would take at least two months before arriving in Changchun. The Sino-Euro Train (Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe) Line is now able to shorten it to only 19 days, which in turn will save a great extent the costs of logistics and time.” The Sino-Euro Train (Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe) Line has thereby become a whole-process supplier of FAW-Audi special trains. The Import and Export Company of FAW has planned to have 1,000 new Audi cars covering such models as A5, A6, A7 and Q7 transported to Changchun within a month and then put them into the regional market.  

On July 28, the second batch 84 Audi cars arrived. With the containers opened by customs officers, the new arrivals in white “covers” appeared one after another. The forklift drivers who had been waiting for a long time started lifting these cars out of containers accurately, steadily, and slowly, which had travelled more than 9,000 kilometers. 

After being confirmed by customs officers, these cars were sent to the inspection line on site to check such contents as chassis test, free roller test, speedometer test, light test, sideslip test and flat braking….Upon completion of this process, these cars will then be sent to the parking lot to wait the arrival of their counterparts. 

It is worth mentioning that Changchun International Land Port Development Co., Ltd., as the operator of Sino-Euro Train (Changchun-Manzhouli-Europe) Line also cooperated for the first time with Maersk’s cross-border railway department to jointly provide high-quality “one-stop” supply chain service in the whole process of China-Europe international lines. “Maersk is a leading logistics company around the world. We have reached a cooperation intention with Maersk to build a one-stop supply chain system of “one order to the end” to facilitate the opening up of Jilin Province,” said the person in charge. In addition, CRCT also made full use of its global logistic network to secure allocation of empty containers and operation of trains to Europe so as to ensure the smooth transportation by such special trains. 

Customs Service Optimized and Vitality Reinforced  

“Get involved in advance and establish a multi-party communication platform; communicate and cooperate closely with local governments, receiving and shipping enterprises, and carrier platforms, discuss several times to revise the process of logistics, customs clearance and inspection, and then finalize the import implementation plan and shorten the time for customs clearance....”Over the past few days, Changchun Xinglong Customs has been optimizing service, improving clearance efficiency and adding vitality to the port for import of complete cars, which in turn has facilitated the opening up of the old industrial base. 

According to Yu Hong, Deputy General Manager of FAW Import and Export Company, in order to ensure the smoothness of customs clearance, Changchun Xinglong Customs guided to adopt an integrated method for declaration. The first-batch transportation originally required 42 declaration forms but only one after the integration of declarations was adopted. This effort alone was said to have saved RMB380,000 for customs declaration, reduced declaration time by more than 95%, and effectively shortened the time for and reduced to a great extent the cost of customs clearance. 

“The import this time is also the first attempt of Changchun Customs’ reform of freight mechanism for Sino-Euro Train,” said Han Huaijia, Deputy Director of Changchun Xinglong Customs, adding, “Through having financial settlement handled in different sections, the freight fee of domestic section of Sino-Euro Train is not included in customs value, that is, the cost of international trade will be reduced effectively.” 

Create New Pole of Growth  

“The implementation of import of complete Audi cars has further broadened the return source of commodities of Sino-Euro Train, and accelerated the diversified development of international trade categories and the pace of opening up to the outside world of Changchun City. It has become an important supplement to the mode of automobile port logistics, greatly reduced the comprehensive cost of logistics, and thus made it more convenient, faster with more options for the citizens to purchase imported cars,” said a leader of Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area. 

With the advantage in policy superposition, the construction of a complete vehicle import port in Changchun City is getting increasingly deepened. In the first half of this year, Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area promoted in an active manner the service inspection center port laboratory, and completed such tests as classified storage and testing for imported BMW cars and export declaration and entry into the area for imported Land Rover cars. 

For the next step, Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Area will bring into full play the function of complete vehicle import port of Changchun City, and make full use of relevant policies of the pilot for parallel import of vehicles to further expand the import of complete vehicles, create the complete vehicle import port of Changchun City into a new type of professional, modern and international port with improved service capacities, thereby facilitating Jilin’s the construction of a distribution center in Northeast China and transforming the import of complete vehicles into a new pole of growth for the export-oriented economic development of Jilin Province.