——"Trade Facilitation and Customs Reform" the Second Session of the High-End Customs Management Forum was held successfully
While the School of Public Administration(“SPA”) of University of International Business and Economics (“UIBE”) was celebrating its 40th anniversary, "Trade Facilitation and Customs Reform" the Second Session of the High-End Customs Management Forum was hold at Room 222 in Xingzheng Building at 3:00pm May 30 2015. Many experts and scholars in the field of trade facilitation and customs were invited and discussed lots of hot spot issues in current trade facilitation field. The guests included Prof. Lin Gunjun, vice-president of UIBE; Director Jiang Xiaoping, from Beijing Re-code Trade Security and Facilitation Institute; Prof. Li Jinheng, head of City and Regional Planning Institute of Peking University; Dr. Wang Chunrui from SPA, UIBE; Prof. Cui Xinsheng, head of Academic Publication Department, UIBE; Prof. Jia Huaiqin, Vice-President of Statistical Society for Foreign Economic Relations and Trade of China; Prof. Tu Xinquan, Executive Dean of China Institute for WTO Studies, UIBE, etc. Prof. Wang Shuwen from SPA, UIBE held the meeting.
Prof. Lin Guijun, Vice President of UIBE delivered a speech with “Impact of Global Value Chain Development on Trade Policy” as the theme. Firstly, he reviewed the historical process of how China became the center of global value chain and pointed out that the first and main reason why China has grown so fast on the value chain since 2001 was that we seized the opportunity of global industrial adjustment and expanded opening-up actively. The second reason was “One Road One Belt” policy, as a new developing engine, supported enterprises to reach chain transfer and cluster development, which improved the trade development reform a lot. At the same time, he also put forward some issues worthy deeper study, like “how to explore trade in services”, “how members in free trade zone keep up with layout of global value chain”, etc. He suggested that we should find the new breakthrough in current reform, and that our the next development goal was to change from cost-oriented reform to upgrade-oriented reform.
Director Jiang Xiaoping, from Beijing Re-code Trade Security and Facilitation Institute, focused on “China Customs Clearance Time Efficiency Research”. He introduced the basic research progress of Beijing Re-code Trade Security and Facilitation Institute and its findings at first stage. Their preliminary findings included the current policy implemented in China, such as regional customs clearance integration, paperless customs clearance, the single window, etc.,and that the approaches used in finding and identifying problems were unscientific and needed to be improved a lot. In order to fix these problems, we should start from looking into the problems, find out the real causes, and then figure out how to adjust accordingly. We should carry out targeted improvements, discuss macro-system problems and solve them with realistic attitude.
Prof. Li Jinheng, head of City and Regional Planning Institute of Peking University, presented his subject “Top-Down Design for National Overseas Think-Tank under the New Normal”. The research prerequisite was to support services and the growing non-public economy and overseas economy in China. The research focused on providing more convenient and popularized foreign trade and custom service and accelerate the transformation of foreign trade and customs. By summarizing the following three aspects, customs deepening reform and the construction background of national overseas think-tank, customer normalization construction under the guidance of national overseas think-tank, and the guidance of national overseas think-tank and customs development, the project proved the feasibility and necessity of building a academic institute “National Overseas Think-Tank” which would be valuable for international market research and influential to neutral academism.
Dr. Wang Chunrui from SPA, UIBE, focused on “FTA Development Model and Trade Facilitation Improvement”. By describing and analyzing the developing model of world free trade protocol and trade facilitation items in FTA, Dr. Wang pointed out that we should seize the opportunity and improve the trade facilitation in China by taking advantage of FTA.
When it turned to round table discussion, Professor Cui Xinsheng, Professor Jia Huaiqin, Professor Tu Xinquan, respectively taking the definition of trade facilitation, the difference and links between trade in value-added and increased trade, potentials and risks of One Belt, One Road, as the starting point, gave speeches and exchanged opinions. Attending teachers and students asked questions and made statements from time to time, and actively participated in the discussions, which was the climax of the Forum.
The Forum ended successfully, and the share and exchange of professional scholars made it into a wonderful feast. Ideas were developed and consensus were built by holding this forum. It not only provided suggestions for the building of customs and other relevant government departments, but also contributed to the rapid development of SPA, UIBE, which was of great practical and theoretical significance.
