Over 4.1 million tons of mainland sand and gravel efficiently cleared customs, adding bricks and tiles to Hong Kong's livelihood infrastructure

Wan Chai Customs officers conduct inspection and supervision of sand and gravel supplied to Hong Kong. Photo by Kong Feiyang (3)

On the morning of June 29th, there was a busy scene of trucks and cranes shuttling back and forth in the operating area of Zhuhai Xiyu Port. As the siren sounded, under the supervision of Wan Chai Customs officers under the jurisdiction of Gongbei Customs, six transport ships loaded with a total of 23000 tons of sand and gravel materials sailed towards Hong Kong, which will soon be used for the third runway system project of Hong Kong Airport.

It is reported that the sand and gravel supplied from mainland China to Hong Kong and Macau mainly come from places such as Xinhui in Jiangmen and Heshan. After initial crushing and screening at the source of goods, they are shipped to the Western Regions Port in Zhuhai for customs clearance. The entire process includes off-site loading, port declaration, and release for export. As the main port for customs clearance of sand and gravel exports from Zhuhai to Hong Kong and Macau, the Xiyu Port relies on its location advantage of connecting Hong Kong and Macau, and the customs clearance volume of building materials for people's livelihoods in Hong Kong and Macau has been increasing year by year.

In the first half of this year, the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects in Hong Kong accelerated, and key projects such as the construction of supporting facilities for the Hong Kong airport entered a critical period of construction. The demand for sand and gravel building materials continued to rise. The demand for sand and gravel materials in Hong Kong's infrastructure projects is high, and the construction period is tight. Thanks to the intelligent supervision mode of customs, high-quality sand and gravel clearance in mainland China is efficient and smooth, which not only effectively guarantees the continuous progress of engineering construction, but also improves the turnover efficiency of dock berths. Currently, more than 70% of sand and gravel used in Hong Kong's infrastructure projects pass through the Western Region Terminal for customs clearance, "said Liu Yingjian, Operations Manager of Zhuhai Western Region Terminal Co., Ltd.

Wan Chai Customs focuses on the demand for building materials such as sand and gravel for Hong Kong, actively provides advanced services, opens up a "green channel" for customs clearance supervision, relies on the "customs enterprise liaison officer" mechanism to connect with sand and gravel export business units, dynamically grasps the demand for sand and gravel exports, opens a customs consultation window, and provides "online+offline" targeted customs clearance guidance; Promote intelligent "embedded" supervision, coordinate with maritime departments to coordinate the scheduling of ships entering and leaving the port, reduce the waiting time for ships, and fully ensure efficient customs clearance of sand and gravel supplied to the port. Based on the characteristics of our business in the jurisdiction, we rely on digital supervision methods to empower the full process supervision of sand and gravel exports, targeting to break through business bottlenecks such as off-site loading and natural sand exports, and ensuring the safety and efficiency of Hong Kong's livelihood engineering construction, "said Zhang Chan, Chief of the Supervision Department of Wan Chai Customs.

According to statistics, from January to June this year, Wan Chai Customs supervised a total of 947 ships supplying sand and gravel to Hong Kong, and efficiently and stably supplied 4.1601 million tons of construction materials such as sand and gravel to Hong Kong. (Text/Kong Feiyang, Shan Ziheng)