Forthree years since the establishment of the Yichang Pilot Free Trade Zone, Yichang Customshas initiated a number of reforms such as“Customs Clearance Integration”to provide more conveniences for enterprises in cargo clearance, administrative approval, and tax revenue collection. For instance, the average customs clearance time for imports and exports was shortened by 62.4% and 25.3%respectivelywhen compared with 2017. A manager fromJinbao Music Instrument Manufacture Co. Ltd. locatedin Yichang Pilot Free Trade Zone said, “Having obtainedthe Authorized Economic Operator(AEO) advanced certification, ourcompany can enjoyspecial benefits incustoms clearance and as a result, our totalexport-importvolume in 2019 had increased by 21.0% year-on-year, reaching 134 million yuan.”

　　Bedek-Lingyun (Yichang) Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. Ltd. is another company having benefitedfrom those reformative measuresmentioned above. In thepast, it did not obtain permission to conduct the bonded maintenance business of “passenger to freighter conversion”. However, thanks to theassistanceof Yichang Customs, it had optimizedits managementand tried to make itself qualified for applyingfor the bonded maintenance business experimental unit outside Free Trade Zone.

　　In Sept.2019, with the approval from of Ministry of Commerce,Bedek-Lingyun Companyhadobtained one of thefour nationwide bonded maintenance projects, which means thatit can conductrepair business of aircraftsoutside the Custom Supervision Area. Now the company is estimated to complete 120 civil aircraft repairs and passenger to freighter conversions every year, with an annual output value of more than 1.5 billion yuan.

　　What’s more, the upstream and downstream industrial chain of the airport economy has been extended, thus being expected to promote the rapid development of the global maintenance and remanufacturing business in Yichang Free Trade Zone.

　　Besides, Yichang Customshas been stepping up the efforts to apply forthe Integrated Free Trade Zone, which has obtained one-sixth of the total foreign trade volume with a land area of 1/20,000nationwide.

　　Yichang Customshas been actively promoting thedifferentiateddevelopment of IntegratedFree Trade Zone, such as upgrading the processing trade and transformation, increasing the proportion of processing trade bonded business and screening qualified enterprises to the zone, showing a marvelous Yichang speedand Yichang qualityingetting work done.

　　In Sept, 2019, the Yichang Customs started theapplication for theIntegrated Free Trade Zone, and in Jan, 2020, State Council officially approved of it. Yichang Customswill speed up the acceptance and closureoperation to promote the leap-forward development in strengthening the guidance of projects entering the zone, implementing the innovation of the supervision and a new high-level of inland opening up. (Reporter Yang Jing;correspondent Du Yu)