The shipping volume of general cargo at Yantai Port increased by 53.5% in the first 9 months (see chart)

The picture shows customs officers conducting on-site inspections of exported miscellaneous goods. Photo by Lv Wencheng

On October 11th, the "Sunshine Dabao" ship, loaded with 28000 tons of mechanical equipment and complete sets of construction materials, set sail from Yantai Port in Shandong Province, sounding its horn and heading towards Africa. Since the beginning of this year, the export business of Yantai Port's general cargo has maintained a strong growth trend. In the first nine months, the shipment volume of general cargo was 18.337 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 53.5%. Among them, the cumulative shipment of general cargo by Central African general cargo liners was 8.066 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 93.4%.

The general cargo has the characteristics of scattered batches, multiple forms, and mixed types of single ship cargo, covering various types of large, loose, and unpackaged goods such as construction machinery, infrastructure equipment, steel and building materials. It is one of the goods with high difficulty in port supervision and long customs clearance processes.

In the past, miscellaneous goods needed to be transported multiple times, and the pressure on the yard and berth was high, making it difficult to adapt to the large-scale and high-density pace of liner operations. "Liu Xin, the organizer of the Yantai Port Production Business Department, introduced that with the increase in China Africa air routes and the surge in foreign trade orders, the traditional regulatory model is difficult to adapt to the large-scale and efficient operation needs of ports.

In response to the pain points of general cargo supervision and the demands of enterprises, Yantai Customs, a subsidiary of Qingdao Customs, has innovatively implemented a new integrated supervision model of "classified supervision+pre tallying+centralized inspection", combined with convenient measures such as "two-step declaration" and "early declaration", shortening the time for goods to be in port by 2 to 3 days.

The customs have deeply adapted to the pace of port operations, advanced docking of shipping schedules and port arrangements, refined customs clearance plans, significantly improved yard turnover efficiency and berth utilization, and continuously compressed the single ship operation cycle, "said Liu Xin.

In response to the characteristics of tight schedules, large cargo volumes, and fast turnover of China Africa shipping routes, the customs has implemented 24-hour appointment clearance to achieve immediate inspection and release of goods upon arrival, matching the needs of fast loading, unloading, and departure of shipping lines to the greatest extent possible, and improving inspection efficiency by 25%, "said Yu Jianbo, Deputy Director of the Yantai Customs Port Office.

As of now, the number of international general cargo routes at Yantai Port has increased to 37, covering key regions such as Africa and South America. Among them, the African route has steadily shipped 30 flights per month, becoming the "golden channel for logistics between China and Africa". (Cai Ziyang, Lv Wencheng/Wen)