The General Administration of Customs ("GAC") has recently issued the Announcement on Matters Concerning the Regulation of Processing Trade (the "Announcement"), immediately effective from the issue date.
The Announcement provides clarity on many articles of the Measures of the Customs of the People's Republic of China for the Supervision and Administration of Processing Trade Goods, including Article 2, Article 6, Article 9, Article 21, Article 22, Article 25, Article 27, Article 31 and Article 40, and on such issues as the failure to submit the manual of processing trade for verification within the designated time limit and the use of paper documents. According to the Announcement, an operator shall handle customs formalities for bonded components and materials, or the domestic sale, transfer or returning of finished products, within the validity of the said manual. Additionally, the Announcement expressly states that pledging formalities will not be processed under any of eight circumstances, such as "where the pledge term is more than one year, when the administration is based on each enterprise". Furthermore, the Announcement states that, to change the storage place or have more storage places, the processing trade enterprise shall obtain an approval from the competent customs house. Except for business needs of outward processing, processing trade goods shall be not stored across the jurisdiction of different customs offices directly affiliated to the GAC.