On October 13, YANTIAN held a communication session with fruit importers to exchange ideas and drive development of the sector.

Fruit import peak season is around the corner, in order to offer fruit importers with more efficient and high-quality services and clearance environment, YANTIAN, as in previous years, works hand in hand with the government, the Customs, enterprises and industry associations to hold this communication session to listen to the voices from the fruit import sector and come up with win-win solutions.

Nearly 100 representatives from Dapeng Customs, industry associations, importers, and shipping lines attended the event.

Luo Huanliang, Deputy Director of Dapeng Customs, said that YANTIAN had been actively working with Dapeng Customs to ensure the smooth flow of cold chain imports. Through the "Smooth Port Service Initiative" jointly held by the two sides, one-stop customs clearance is realised for time-critical cargoes such as fresh fruits, plant seeds, and dangerous goods. To the fastest extent possible, inspection, sampling, and container pick-up operations can be completed on the same day once cargoes are unloaded. In the face of the upcoming peak season, Dapeng Customs will continue to optimise each service link and take multiple measures to ensure fast and efficient clearance.

Lawrence Shum, Managing Director of Hutchison Ports YANTIAN, thanked Dapeng Customs for its ongoing support and said, "The current international trade landscape is still complex and volatile, and fruit imports face both challenges and opportunities. As a global shipping hub, YANTIAN tops South China in terms of the number of America, Europe, and Australia services calling at the port. I can confidently say that we will be able to cater to the import and export needs in the peak season."

At the session, representatives of industry associations and importers exchanged views with the Customs staff present, who responded positively to the opinions and suggestions made.

As a preferred port for cold chain in South China, YANTIAN team also elaborated on the port's features and advantages during the event.

Excellent port conditions
Endowed with an inimitable natural deep-water port, YANTIAN has the unique channel of approximately 18-metre-deep and 475-metre-wide in the Greater Bay Area, allowing two-way navigation for the world's largest container vessels in all-weather. Fully loaded mega-vessels can easily depart for anywhere in the world without waiting for the high tide. Equipped with efficient and reliable equipment and facilities, it is capable of provide premium services to its customers. All these secure the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain in the Greater Bay Area. 100% of the world's largest container vessels visiting the Greater Bay Area call at YANTIAN. Furthermore, many shipping lines choose YANTIAN as the last port-of-call for their Europe and US services, as well as the ports-of-call for Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and intra-Asia services.

Stable and fast shipping services
As a key player in the global supply chain, YANTIAN serves over 1/3 of the import and export container traffic of Guangdong province and 1/4 of the container volume generated by the Sino-US trade. At present, nearly 100 international services are calling at the port, including direct sailings to major ports in Chile. This year, YANTIAN’s rail-sea intermodal service completed the first order of transporting imported cold chain juice by rail, opening up a new channel for imported fresh products. With our extensive, fast, secure, and premium service network and multimodal transport solutions, YANTIAN is able to provide strong momentum for the development of China’s quality international trade.

Upgraded cold chain logistics facilities
YANTIAN is now equipped with 4,487 reefer plugs in the container yard dedicated for cold chain products, and there are 2 temperature-controlled inspection facilities and 1 Customs-designated supervisory site to ensure fast inspection and release for reefer cargoes. We also have 6 reefer warehouses with a total capacity of about 200,000 tons to provide one-stop and end-to-end fresh and frozen food services to the Greater Bay Area and even the whole country.

Strong support from the government and the Customs
With the strong support of Dapeng Customs, imported fruits can be prioritised for inspection and release at YANTIAN. On January 16 this year, loaded with about 500 containers of cherries, the Chilean AX1 express service arrived at YANTIAN. We worked collaboratively with the Customs to complete all the clearance and release processes on the day of unloading so that fresh cherries could be quickly delivered to the fruit wholesale market, and some importers even picked up the cherries within 10 minutes after unloading. On May 1, the government launched a series of support policies for cold chain development, promoting YANTIAN to be a distribution center for cold chain imports.

YANTIAN has also set up a special project team to optimise its operational process and improve clearance efficiency in response to customers' needs.

In the future, in collaboration with Dapeng Customs and relevant parties, we will integrate resources to introduce more service options for import, and promote the renovation and upgrades of inspection facilities. Efforts will also be done to introduce new reefer warehouses and streamline clearance procedures. We are committed to turning Yantian Port to a cold chain logistics complex in South China with fast clearance, high security, and diverse functions, so as to satisfy the diversified needs of the Chinese foodstuff market and facilitate the vigorous development of the import trade of China.