China Announces Major Achievements in Battle Against SmugglingChina's battle against rampant smuggling activities has resulted in major achievements since 1998, a top customs official said.Sheng Guangzu, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs (GAC), made the remarks at a joint conference between the GAC and the government of Fujian Province on the crackdown of refined oil smuggling last Friday. Sheng said the effect of the nationwide anti-smuggling campaign can be seen in the reduced statistical gap concerning Hong Kong's exports to the mainland. As in 2000, the mainland's version of imports from Hong Kong was nine percent higher than the Hong Kong version, much lower than that of previous years. This shows that smuggling activities via Hong Kong have generally stopped, the official said. Another indicator of the success of the battle against smuggling is the rapid growth of China's tariff revenue. In 1999, the country's tariff revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. The figure soared to 220 billion yuan in 2000. In the first half of 2001, the tariff revenue rose 24 percent to 122.8 billion yuan. The crackdown on smuggling has led to apparent improvements in the performances of key enterprises in crude oil, petrochemicals, information technology, textiles, metallurgy and other sectors, as a result of price gains. The number of exposed cases has been declining. In 1998, Chinese customs investigated cases worth 13.69 billion yuan in dodged tariffs. The figure dropped to 5.414 billion yuan in 1999 and down further to 4.804 billion yuan in 2000, Sheng said. |
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