In order to accurately judge the development situation of foreign trade, the Ministry of Commerce organized 10 working groups to visit grassroots from early May to early July this year.
These 10 working groups went to 14 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) including Guangdong and Jiangsu to conduct research and policy presentations. While listening to the demands of enterprises, they also promoted Document No. 19 (i.e., “Several Opinions on Supporting the Stable Growth of Foreign Trade”). 》) achieve practical results.
According to the official website of the Ministry of Commerce, after the promulgation of Document No. 19, the Ministry of Commerce has studied and introduced five trade facilitation measures to reduce the burden on enterprises, namely: canceling the automatic import license for 81 coded commodities in 5 major categories; decentralizing processing trade business The right to extend approval; cancel all license fee items; reduce value-added service fees for processing trade network enterprises; reduce booth fees for the 116th Canton Fair Export Exhibition.
So, what exactly are the demands of foreign trade companies? What kind of policies do they need? The reporter interviewed some foreign trade companies on this issue.
Exchange rate stability and Canton Fair booths
A building materials company in Zhejiang has total annual sales of about 3 billion yuan, 5% of which is exported overseas. Speaking of the difficulties in import and export, He Li (pseudonym), the person in charge of the company, said that the two most frequently mentioned demands when communicating with the local commerce bureau are: First, the hope that the exchange rate can be more stable. “Annual changes can be controlled within 2%”; the second is that the government can focus on supporting large industry-leading enterprises at the Canton Fair booth.
He Li said that as the company ranked first among its peers by the Light Industry Industry Association, they were unable to obtain a booth at the Canton Fair. He pointed out that the original booths will not change, and the new mobile quotas every year are few and difficult to obtain. There are even “scalpers” of booths, who rush to occupy the booths and then sell them at high prices.
Meng Zhuo, Japan manager of Anhui Garment Import and Export Co., Ltd., said that the company spends more than 2 million yuan on exhibitions every year. For the Canton Fair, the cost of booth fees and exhibitors alone exceeds 1 million yuan. “Due to the monopoly of domestic exhibitions and limited booths, it is difficult to reduce costs.” Meng Zhuo said.
Ms. Yan, the person in charge of a tens of millions of Guangdong import and export company, also told this reporter that the company was only established seven years ago, but she had participated in the Canton Fair before and no longer participated in recent years. Because at the Canton Fair, there was vicious competition among companies to lower prices. Moreover, the increasingly high exhibition fees also deterred her.
The phenomenon of arbitrary charging
In the preliminary survey conducted by our reporter, almost all foreign trade companies mentioned problems in customs random inspections.
He Li was also very helpless about this. In his view, this is a commonplace issue. “I hope the crackdown on hidden charges can be more stringent.”
Tian Ye (pseudonym), general manager of a start-up imported food company in Shenzhen, said that the cost of import customs clearance for enterprises mainly includes agency fees paid to customs declaration companies, commodity inspection fees and value-added tax. Tianye’s company’s annual sales are about 60 million yuan. Under normal circumstances, the money spent on customs clearance is only a few thousand yuan. But if something goes wrong during the free customs inspection, it may cost extra money.
Speaking of the phenomenon of arbitrary charges, Ms. Yan said that Guangdong’s ports are relatively formal, but some areas do deliberately set unreasonable standards to obtain additional revenue.
Tong Lin, the person in charge of Shanghai Hanyuefu Furniture Co., Ltd., told this reporter that when importing mahogany raw materials from Southeast Asia, the company often finds local specialized intermediaries to help pass customs and transport it to the country. This type of intermediary knows how to import through customs at the lowest cost.
Improved export tax rebate efficiency
Ms. Yan told this reporter that during the import process, customs clearance procedures are sometimes somewhat delayed. She said that the company mainly imports chemicals. Due to the different concentrations of chemicals, the prices will be different. However, the customs will have a set price range when verifying the price. Therefore, the company must either accept the price specified by the customs or conduct a sampling survey and Check price. Accepting the established price from customs may not match the import price, and if you choose the latter, it may take about a month and cause certain losses.
Ms. Yan’s company mainly exports silk thread raw materials. The biggest problem encountered is the cycle and efficiency of export tax rebates. She said, especially when it comes to export business from other provinces, if a transfer letter is required, the entire process may take about a year. Of course, if the export tax rebate goes smoothly, it will only take 2 to 3 months. She reflected that by the end of the year, export tax rebates tend to be delayed.
In June this year, this newspaper reported in a report titled “Export Tax Refund Speeding Up” that foreign trade companies reported that export tax refunds, especially the document filing process, are particularly time-consuming and energy-consuming, because customs declarations, waybills, express delivery notes, etc. They come back at different times, and every order has to be rushed. Export may require different modes of transportation by sea, land and air, and the return time of the supporting documents for each mode of transportation is also uncertain.
Meng Zhuo also told this reporter: “If an emergency occurs in the supplier company or the person in charge of the company cannot be found during the letter, then there will be no hope of tax refund.”
The case of export tax rebate failure in MengI don’t have many impressions. However, the company’s conservative statistics are: in 2013, the company had a total of about 80 invoices that were not processed, and the tax withheld from the invoices amounted to 2 million yuan, which was more than 1% of 190 million yuan.
Import costs
Meng Zhuo said that in recent years the government has been encouraging foreign trade exports, so the fees collected by the government in the export process have been very small. “It’s improved a lot this year.” For example, export commodity inspection and document fees are currently free.
Qi Hua (pseudonym), the person in charge of a medium-sized clothing export company, told this reporter that export companies also need to import some accessories. Some parts and materials, such as zippers and buttons, need to be imported from abroad, but this part of the import process incurs a lot of costs.
Qi Hua gave an example. Recently, the company paid more than 3,570 yuan in the process of importing 10 boxes of zippers. In addition to the necessary off-site agency fees of more than 300 yuan and freight costs of more than 600 yuan, the remaining approximately 2,600 yuan should be reduced. part. For example, quarantine, inspection fees and customs declaration fees account for about 5%.
Qi Hua told reporters that these 10 boxes of zippers are accessories for a batch of 6,500 pieces of clothing produced by the company for export. In addition to zippers, there are also buttons and other accessories. It is estimated that on average, each piece of clothing costs 1.2 to 1.8 yuan in the import of accessories, accounting for more than 1% of the cost, which increases the consumption of export enterprises in production.
