Customs officials examine goods in Shanghai. [Photo/Shanghai Customs]

Shanghai Customs has taken 12 steps to ensure the safety and stability of industrial and supply chains to assist the city in resuming business and production operations as the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai is brought under control. 

To minimize the time required for clearance, customs will increase the number of service windows, provide online examinations, and use electronic certificates for import inspection and quarantine. 

Furthermore, customs will use a flexible sampling ratio for everyday essentials including frozen or fresh aquatic goods, fruits, meat, pasteurized milk, and infant formula, and will inspect imported and exported fresh and perishable agriculture produce and food first.

Green channels have been set up for the entire industrial chains of integrated circuits, biomedicine, and automobile manufacturing. 

From finished products to raw materials, intermediate goods, and related manufacturing equipment, clearance facilitation policies will expand from key enterprises to the upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial and supply chains. 

Enterprises are also supported to make use of 'land-to-water' and 'land-to-rail' options to accelerate the transportation of goods across customs areas in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Officials said that customs authorities in the region have established a coordination mechanism in response to the challenges the epidemic has created for the supply chain in the delta region.

Customs authorities in the five major cities – Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Hefei – have adopted mutual recognition of each other's clearance processes for cargos related to companies on Shanghai's whitelist of businesses that can resume operations.