(Yicai Global) July 24 -- As the third China International Import Expo approaches its 100-day countdown, Shanghai Customs said today that it will bring in 14 more measures to support the event, The Paper reported. They include tax guarantees for inbound exhibits and backing for cross-border e-commerce after the expo.

For this year’s temporary entry exhibits, the National Convention Center in Shanghai, which organizes the annual event, can apply for tax guarantees with the city’s customs authority, Deputy Customs Commissioner Ye Jian said at a press conference today. Exhibitors can also buy customhouse bonds insurance, which features lesser occupation of funds and a shorter review period compared with conventional deposit models, he added.

After the six-day expo wraps up, Shanghai Customs will allow some of the exhibits to be transferred to a special regulation zone, where sales will proceed based on the model of cross-border e-commerce online shopping bonded goods, in a bid to multiply sales channels of the exhibits and further expand imports.

All of the measures introduced by Shanghai Customs for previous CIIEs will continue this year. Among them are dispatch specialists to provide on-site consulting services for exhibitors, providing special channels for inbound exhibits, and prioritizing the handling of customs clearance procedures such as declarations, inspections, sampling and testing.

Covering 360,000 square meters, this year’s enterprise exhibition area is 20 percent bigger than the second held last year, and about the same number of Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders have signed up for it, Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the China International Import Expo Bureau, told the same press conference today. 

The work of soliciting exhibitors to take part is basically complete, Sun added. 

The third CIIE will take place in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10.

Editor: Peter Thomas