The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the Ministry of Commerce, and the General Administration of Customs recently jointly promulgated the Measures for the Online Inspection of Foreign Exchange Collection and Settlement of Export Proceeds for the purposes of strengthening supervision of cross-border capital flows and improving  inspection of the authenticity and conformity of export transactions and the involved foreign exchange settlement. According to the Measures, the online inspection will be carried out on the foreign exchange collection and settlement of export proceeds beginning on July 14, and the registration management system for enterprises' trade credit will also become operational. At the beginning of the trial operation of the system, two deputy administrators of the SAFE, Li Dongrong and Deng Xianhong, respectively visited banks and enterprises in Beijing to investigate the trial run and onsite operations of the system, and they answered questions from banks and enterprises.
It is known that on the whole so far the new system has functioned smoothly, and some enterprises have successfully carried out related business according to the new stipulations. As the director of the SAFE has pointed out, the Central Committee of the Party and the State Council attach great importance to strengthening supervision of cross-border capital flows, and on numerous occasions specific requirements have been proposed. The online inspection of foreign exchange collection and settlement of export proceeds and the registration management of enterprises' trade credit are of great significance for substantially preventing abnormal inflows of foreign exchange via trade, for maintaining normal trade order, and for safeguarding the economic and financial security of the state. Facing strict time limitations and a tough assignment, the banks are working on the frontline to enforce this policy, and are shouldering a huge responsibility to supervise the abnormal inflow of foreign exchange. The banks should maintain sound operations of the system, reinforcing the training of personnel, understanding the essence of the policy as soon as possible, mastering operations, and spreading the policy to enterprises as well as providing timely tracking and feedback on new issues and problems. The SAFE will pay close attention to implementation of the policy. Moreover, the leaders of the SAFE will visit various regions in the near future to investigate and to provide onsite instructions to banks and enterprises so as to discover and solve problems in a timely manner, and then to perfect the policy and to facilitate the legal operations of enterprises while restraining the abnormal inflows of foreign exchange. In order to further simplify the procedures and to facilitate operations by the enterprises, the foreign exchange administration is working with the taxation and other departments to study a way to carry out verification while also inspecting the foreign exchange collection of export proceeds.