Officials from Shenzhen Customs said on June 8 that the branch has optimized efficiency after trying out classified clearance for processing enterprises in its Nantou Pass.

According to Shenzhen Customs, classified clearance means classifying the risks of import and export goods and then managing their clearances differently. Through this management model, the low-risk goods, which account for the majority, will be inspected by computer, while the high-risk goods will be intensively checked.

According to the customs department, the classification had not been previously applied to processing enterprises until last year and Nantou Pass is acting as the pilot.

There are more than 9,800 processing companies in Nantou. and the pass handles around 2,000 declarations a day, each of which takes 1.8 hours. After they adopted classified clearance, almost 80 percent of the exports and 25 percent of the imports are now considered low-risk goods and get quickly passed through, so the average check time for each declaration has dropped to 5 to 10 seconds.

According to the office, the procedures also saved many companies in terms of human resources and transportation costs.