GACC Announcement No.91, 2008 on Special Safeguard agst New Zealand Agricultural Products

In accordance with the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and New Zealand, China may conduct special safeguard measures against the agricultural products importing from New Zealand.

Relevant Matters are hereby announced:

1. The agricultural products concerned include four categories under eleven Chinese HS Codes (see the Annex 1 hereto).

2. China Customs shall determine relevant import duty rates as per the principle of "conventional tariff rates are first applied to the first declared".

Unless otherwise regulated, where the agricultural import quantity exceeds the safeguard triggering norm, the GACC shall immediately issue an announcement of implementing special safeguard measures and shall levy duties on the excessive imports as per China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) tariff.

The importing products shall be declared to the customs only after their transport facilities are declared for entry; the customs may reject advance declaration for the importing products.

3. The importers shall fill out customs declaration forms as regulated, filling with "Y" in the code column of attached documents and filling with "10" +":"+ commodity serial number in the number column "<>"of attached documents, and also shall submit the Certificate of Origin as per the origin regulations set forth in GACC Decree No. 175.

The conventional duty rates may be applied to the importing products that are compliant with the regulations of GACC Decree No.175 as well as with the declaration requirements aforesaid.

4. As regards the in-transit importing products that are entered into contract before the implementation of special safeguard measures, where being declared after the implementation thereof, the importers may appeal to the customs for application of the conventional duty rates as per Articles 5 and 6 under-mentioned.

5. The importers of in-transit imports shall, before their import declaration, appeal in writing to the governing customs for application of the conventional duty rates by submitting the documents as follow:

(1) Bill of lading, invoice, packing list, contract;
(2) Certificate of Origin compliant with GACC Decree No.175 regulations;
(3) Document certifying the date of departure of shipment;
(4) Other documents required by the customs

All the submissions shall include originals and copies, and the customs shall preserve the copies.

6. Local first-tier customs shall be responsible for the application of the conventional duty rates and shall determine approval or disapproval of the application within ten workdays upon receipt of the importers’ request.

As regards the imports qualified for the conventional duty rates, the customs shall issue the Certificate For Conventional Duty Applicability To In-Transit Import Products (see the Annex 2), which shall be in duplicate, respectively one for the authority and the other for the importer to hold; as regards the unqualified, the customs shall not issue that Certificate.

7. As regards the imports qualified for the conventional duty rates, the importers shall fill out the declaration forms with "997" in "levy & exemption property" column, "special case" in "levy & exemption" column; and attached documents may not resort to the filling as per Article 3 herein.

Local customs shall examine all the documents submitted by the importers and shall calculate the duty amount by manually entering conventional rates under "special case" item.

As regards the unqualified imports, the importers shall fill out the declaration forms with "101" in the "levy & exemption property" column and "levy as regulated" in the "levy & exemption" column.

8. As regards the conventional applicability, the in-transit import quantity of current year may be counted into the import quantity of next calendar year.

9. The GACC shall monthly summarize the import quantity that are declared and confirmed and shall timely release relevant information over its website (www.customs.gov.cn). When the import quantity is close to current safeguard-triggering norm, the GACC may temporarily issue an announcement.

10. Interpretation of this Announcement shall be assumed by the GACC.

11. This Announcement shall enter into force on January 1, 2009.

Annex 1: List of the Agricultural Products under Special Safeguard under China-New Zealand FTA (omitted)

Annex 2: Certificate For Conventional Duty Applicability To In-Transit Import Products (omitted)



The General Administration of Customs of China (GACC)

December 19, 2008