Ningbo ranks third nationwide in port business climate

Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province was ranked third in an assessment of the business climate of China's top 10 maritime container ports, according to local media reports.

The ranking was released at the 2020 China Customs Affairs Development Conference held in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province on Dec 11.

The city has in recent years made significant efforts to shorten customs clearance time, slashing the duration for import and export at Ningbo ports from 166.26 hours and 27.63 hours in 2017 to 33.49 hours and 2.94 hours in September 2020 respectively, official data show.

Meanwhile, customs clearance costs have been continuously reduced in the city and an open and transparent charging system has been implemented.

Local authorities have also been steadily pushing ahead with the pilot program to exempt enterprises from customs inspection fees. More than 200 million yuan in such fees have been exempted to date.

A survey by Beijing Ruiku Trade Security and Facilitation Research Center showed that the compliance costs for container throughput at Ningbo ports are lower than major water ports in China.

In the first 11 months of this year, Ningbo's foreign trade value amounted to 889.56 billion yuan ($136.85 billion), an increase of 7.1 percent compared with the same period last year.

Among them, imports stood at 308.31 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 6.7 percent, while exports reached 581.25 billion yuan, up 7.2 percent year-on-year.