The General Administration of Customs ("GAC") has recently issued the Announcement [2018] No. 167, clearly stating that the pilot program for market procurement trade will be further expanded.
The announcement states that the pilot program for market procurement trade has been expanded to cover six more marketplaces, including the Wenzhou (Lucheng) Light Industrial Product Trading Center, the Shishi clothing mall in Quanzhou, the Gaoqiao marketplace in Hunan, and the Asia International Furniture Material Trading Center. According to the Announcement of the General Administration of Customs on Matters Concerning the Regulatory Measures for and Regulatory Approach Regarding the Market Procurement Trade (Announcement of the General Administration of Customs [2014] No. 54, the "Announcement No. 54"), the applicable scope of "Market Procurement" (Code: 1039), one of customs regulatory approaches, is hereby expanded to cover exported commodities procured in the aforesaid marketplaces, and matters concerning customs regulation shall be subject to Paragraph 1 through Paragraph 10 of the Announcement No. 54. Furthermore, the announcement specifies that, the arrangement made in this announcement shall not be implemented, until the market procurement commodity identification system for the pilot regions, and the integrated market management system that covers all business entities engaged in and whole processes of the market procurement trade, pass the acceptance inspection; the specific date of implementation will be separately published by the customs of Hangzhou, Xiamen and other relevant cities.