Import

(1)Advance Report of Agency

Before overseas delivery, the overseas agency company shall send the waybill, flight, number of package, weight, product name, actual consignee, other addresses, telephone number and other contents to the agency company at the destination.

(2) Documents and goods handover

Goods related documents arrive with the plane as the air goods enter into one country. At this time the transport vehicle and goods are under the supervision of customs. After the goods are discharged, store the goods into supervisory warehouses of airline companies or airports. Then conduct import goods manifest record and transmit information such as waybill number, consignee, airport of departure, airport of destination, number of package, weight, product name and flight number to customs for retention and customs declaration. Meanwhile, send documents collection notice and cargo delivery notice in accordance with the consignee address in the waybill.

Achieve document-document verification when handover, that is verify handover list and master waybill; document-good verification, that is verify handover list and goods.

(3) Tally and warehousing 

Tally: Check the number of packages of each order one by one and check goods damage status again. If there shall be problems which are not found when receiving the goods, we can make representations to the airline; store up and warehouse respectively in terms of bulk production, small cargo, light goods, single order goods, consolidated goods, dangerous goods, valuables, frozen goods and cold storage goods; register storage zone number of each order of goods and input into computer.

Warehousing: avoid water and wet; avoid heavy load; avoid distortion; avoid high temperature and spoilage; avoid sun exposure; establish independent dangerous goods warehouse.

(4) Document sorting and arrival notice

Document sorting: Consolidated consignment, split the bill under the master waybill; sort documents and number them in category; compile various documents.

Arrival notice: Notify cargo owner the arrival condition as soon, quick and reliable as possible. 

Disposal of original waybill: print Customs Import Goods Warehousing List in quintuplicate by computer, 2 for customs and each one for commodity inspection, sanitation inspection and animal inspection.

(5) Documentation and customs declaration

Form of documentation, customs declaration and transport: freight agency company deals with documentation, customs declaration and transport for goods owner; goods owner deals with documentation, customs declaration and transport by himself; freight agency company deals with documentation and customs declaration for goods owner and goods owner deals with transport by himself; goods owner deals with documentation and customs declaration, then entrust freight agency company to deal with transport; goods owner deals with documentation, then entrust freight agency company to deal with customs declaration and transport.

Import documentation: for goods owner unit which is in long-term collaboration with import approval and certificate stored in the freight forwarder, once the goods are arrived and the arrival notice is sent, the freight forwarder could deal with documentation and customs declaration and notify the owner to deal with transport or do it for the owner; for some import goods, due to lack of relevant approval and certificate, the freight forwarder may send the waybill, documents and B/L to the goods owner unit in the form of express delivery and determine the documentation and customs declaration matters after the unit get the approval and certificate ready; for those do not need approval and certificate, the freight forwarder could just deal with documentation and customs declaration and notify the owner to deal with transport or do it for the owner; for goods owner who requires elsewhere customs clearance, under the condition of complying with customs regulations, the freight forward shall prepare Tran-customs Transportation Application to fulfill tran-customs formalities. The items which require the declarant to fill in the submitted application include: port of entry, consignee, operation unit, contract number, approving authority and document number, term of foreign exchange, date of import, B/L number or waybill number, freight and miscellaneous charges, package number, gross weight, HS code, goods specification and number, quantity, transaction price, price condition, currency, declaration unit and date of declaration, etc. Tran-customs Transportation Application, whose content is less than the declaration form, should also be filled in minutely according to the requirements.

Import customs declaration: customs declaration could be roughly divided into four procedures: preliminary examination, documents examination, taxation and release.

Declaration deadline and fee for delayed declaration: Declaration deadline for import foods: 14 days since the transport vehicle enters. The customs shall charge fee for delayed declaration once the declaration time exceeds the deadline; the charging standard is 0.05% of goods landed price.

Implementation of open-package inspection: For goods declared by client himself, usually the goods owner shall borrow the goods from warehouse supervised by freight forwarder. Then the agency company shall assign staff to accompany the good owner to assist open-package inspection. For goods that the client entrusts agency company to conduct customs declaration, the agency company shall notify the goods owner to assign person to involve in the inspection or issue written power of attorney to authorize the agency to do it for him. After the open-package inspection, the agency company shall seal up the inspected goods and transport to supervision warehouse for storage.

(6)Charge and shipment

Shipment: After the completion of customs declaration and quarantine inspection, the goods owner shall take the import goods deliver order with customs clearance seal, animal and plant inspection seal and health quarantine seal to the supervision warehouse to pay and take delivery of goods. 

Charge: before the warehouse releases the goods, the freight forward would usually collect all the charges. The charges include: freight payable at destination and advanced commission; document fess and customs clearing charge; storage charge; handling charge and forklift charge; airline storage charge; payment of customs pre-recording, animal and plant inspection and health quarantine inspection for the goods owner; tariff and advanced commission.  

(7) Delivery and transshipment

Home delivery: Mainly refers to delivering the goods directly to the owner unit after import customs clearance. Generally the transport vehicle is car.

Transshipment: Mainly refers to transshipping the goods after import customs clearance to domestic freight agency company. Major transport methods are: airplane, car, train, water transport and postal service.

Customs transfer of import goods and supervisory transportation: means that the goods do not fulfill import customs declaration formalities in the place of entry after enters in while transferring to another customs place to fulfill import customs declaration formalities. Before fulfilling import customs declaration formalities, the goods are under the supervision of customs. Therefore the tran-customs transportation is also supervisory transportation, meaning that the transportation is under the supervision of customs. 

Export

1. Accept the entrustment of consignor to book shipping space. Obtain necessary export documents from the consignor; arrange transport vehicle to take the goods or the consignor delivers the goods to specific location, and verify with the documents seriously. 

2. Customs declaration

(1) Declaration documents generally include: commercial invoice, packing list, commodity inspection certificate and export cargo declaration. Some commodities require animal and plant quarantine certificate or certificate of origin, foreign-exchange verification form and export contract, etc. 

(2) After the customs checks and accepts the goods and affix acceptance seal on the declaration form, make out air waybill. 

(3) Bind the cargo accompanying documents offered by the consignee on the back of the waybill; if the goods are consigned in the form of consolidation transport, consolidation transport list shall be made. Then put the list, all house air waybills and accompany documents into an envelope and bind on the back of the waybill.

(4) Stick the prepared waybill label to each cargo. If it is consolidation transport cargo, there must be house air waybill label. 

(5) Declare to the customs for release with prepared air waybill. 

(6) Hand over the waybill affixed customs release seal together with the goods to the airline. The airline shall then sign at the delivery receipt after the airline inspects and accepts the documents and goods. 

(7) Consolidation transport cargo. Content that requires to notify overseas agency through telex: air flight number, waybill number, goods name, number of package, gross weight and consignee, etc.

3. Linking up of export transportation between port foreign transportation company and mainland company.

(1)The mainland company shall notify the port company the commodity name, number of package, gross weight and time requirement of the goods in advance and make out house air waybill. Then send the house air waybill to the port company with other documents or deliver to the port company together with the goods. 

(2) The mainland company shall transport goods to the port according to the stipulated time. 

(3) The port company shall assign special person to receive the goods transported by the mainland company. 

(4) The port company shall be responsible to book space to the airline; notify mainland company the flight number and air waybill number or master air waybill number. The mainland company print the flight number and air waybill on the house air waybill. Hand over the house air waybill to consigner to handle foreign exchange settlement. 

Precautions for filling right side of B/L: (Note: this paragraph follows “type of B/L”)

(1) Shipper, generally the beneficiary in L/C. If the applicant asks for Third Party B/L for trade demand, it can be met. 

(2) Consignee, if named B/L is required, the detailed consignee company or name of consignee could be filled in; if it is order B/L, then fill in “order” or “to order”; it the person of order is required to list in the B/L, it can be filled by “To order of shipper”, “To order of consignee” and “To order of XX bank” according to different requirements. 

(3) Notify party, the recipient to which the shipping company sends arrival notice when the goods arrive at the port of destination, sometimes called importer. For the B/L under L/C, if L/C has the right to specify the notify party in B/L, then it must be filled in strictly in accordance with the requirement of L/C. If it is named B/L or B/L to order of consignee and the consignee has a detailed address, then the notify party could remain blank. If it is blank B/L or B/L to order of shipper, then the column must be filled with the name and detailed address of the notify party. Or else the shipping company cannot contact the consignee and the consignee cannot declare to customs and take delivery of goods timely. Moreover, the goods may be confiscated due to exceeding the prescribed time of declaration.

(4) B/L No., generally listed in upper right corner of the B/L for the convenience of contact and verification. The shipper shall specify name of vessel and B/L No. when sending shipment advice to the consignee. 

(5) Name of vessel, fill in name of the vessel that loads the goods as well as the voyage number. 

(6) Port of loading, fill in specific name of the actual port of loading.

(7) Port of discharge: fill in name of the actual port of discharge. If it is transshipment, the port of discharge in the first-carriage B/L shall fill in the port of transshipment and the consignee shall fill in the shipping company of the second-carriage; the port of loading in the second-carriage B/L shall fill in the above port of transshipment and the port of discharge shall fill in the final port of destination. If the first-carriage shipping company issues through B/L, the port of charge could fill in the final port of destination. The name of first-carriage vessel and second-carriage vessel shall be specified in B/L. If the goods are transshipped via some port, “VIA XX” shall be displayed. When conducting container transportation, combined transport B/L is adopted presently. Except port of loading and port of discharge, the place of receipt, place of delivery, pre-carriage by and ocean vessel and voyage No. should also be specified in the B/L. Note the issue of ports with the same name when filling in port of discharge. If it is port selection B/L, clear indication shall be given in this column.

(8) Description of goods: the description of goods under the L/C must conforms to the rules in L/C

(9) Number and kind of packages: fill in according to the actual package condition.

(10) Shipping marks: Fill in according to the rules if there are related rule in L/C. Otherwise it can be filled in according to the mark in the invoice. 

(11) Gross weight and measurement: Unless otherwise stipulated in the L/C, specify the gross weight of goods with KG as unit and volume of goods with CBM as unit.

(12) Freight and charges: generally in the form of freight prepaid or prefight collect. If it is CIF or CFR export, generally freight prepaid is filled in and it can never be omitted or else the consignee cannot take delivery of goods due to freight problem. Even though the condition can be ascertained, it will delay the time of deliver and cause losses. If it is FOB export, the freight column can fill in freight collect unless the consignee entrust the shipped to pay the freight for him. 

(13) Issue, date of copies of B/L: The B/L must be issued by carrier or captain or their agents and the identity of the issuer should be clearly indicated. Common indication methods include: carrier, captain or as agent for the carrier: XXX, etc. Copies of B/L shall conform to the requirement of L/C. For instance, “Full set of” is generally considered to print 3 originals and several copies. When one of the originals completes goods collection, the rest originals and copies shall lose efficacy. B/L is also a necessary document for exchange settlement especially in exchange settlement of documentary L/C. Bank requires that all provided documents must be consistent. Therefore, the date signed on the B/L must conforms to or be prior to the latest date of shipment as stipulated in the L/C or Contract. If the seller estimates that the goods cannot be loaded before the date of shipment in the L/C, the seller shall notify the buyer as soon as possible and require modifying the L/C, instead of collecting goods payment by conducting fraudulent behaviors such as ante-dated B/L and advance B/L, etc. 

Back clause and its basis of B/L: there are many clauses on the back of long-term original B/L, which mainly include:

(1) Definition clause: Mainly defines related parties such as “carrier” and “shipper”, etc.

(2) Jurisdiction clause: refers to the right of a certain court to try and solve a case according to the law when there are disputes about the B/L.

(3) Duration of liability: Generally, carrier’s duration of liability stipulated by the ocean B/L starts from the moment when the goods get on board and ends when goods are discharged from the vessel. While that of container B/L starts from the moment when the carrier accepts the goods and end when the goods are delivered to the consignee. 

(4) Package and marks: The shipper is required to offer proper package and right and distinct marks to the goods. 

(5) Freight and other charges: The freight shall be paid when loading on board if it is stipulated to be freight prepaid or be paid when delivery if it is stipulated to be freight collect.  When the vessel and goods suffer from damages or losses, the freight should still be paid, or else the carrier could exercise lien to the goods and documents. 

(6) Transshipment clause: Even though the carrier has issued direct B/L, transshipment is allowed for objective needs without the permission of the shipper. The carrier should bear the transshipment cost but the shipper bears the risks. The liability of the carrier is limited to the transportation that his own operated vessel completes. 

(7) Inaccuracy in particulars furnished by shipper: The carrier has the right to verify the goods quantity, weight, dimension and content that the shipper declares at the port of loading and port of destination. If they do not conform to the actual, the carrier could charge freight penalty.

(8) Limit of liability: Specify the limit of indemnity that the carrier shall pay for losses caused by goods destruction or damage. That is, utmost compensation amount for each item of goods or each unit of goods. 

(9) General average-G.A: Specify the rule of adjustment if general average occurs. Internationally, York-Antwerp Rules are commonly adopted for adjustment. In China, some B/L specifies Beijing Adjustment Rules for adjustment. 

(10) American clause: Specify that the goods transportation from and to American ports only apply to Carriage of Good by Sea Act 1936. The freight shall be determined according the rates registered in Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). If B/L clauses conflict with the above act, the American Law shall prevail. This clause is also called Local Clause. 

(11) Ondeck cargo, live animals and plants: Acceptance, carrying, transportation, storage and discharge rules on these three kinds of goods. The risks shall be borne by the shipper and the carrier bears no responsibility for loss or damage of the above goods.