The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and the General Administration of Customs (GAC) recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation between the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and the General Administration of Customs on the Joint Promotion of Reform of the Foreign Exchange Administration System for Trade in Goods in order to strengthen cooperation between departments, efficiently promote the reform of the foreign exchange administration system for trade in goods, and jointly improve the level of cooperative supervision.

The SAFE and the GAC have already established effective cooperative mechanisms to coordinate policy formulation, to share regulatory information, and to strengthen business cooperation. The execution of this Memorandum further defines the process of coordinating business and the exchange of regulatory information between the parties and other affairs in accordance with the needs to promote the reform of the foreign exchange administration system for trade in goods. The main contents of this Memorandum include:

First, adjusting the business process and function of the system for coordination between the foreign exchange authorities and the customs. Upon the date of nationwide generalization of the reform of the foreign exchange administration system for trade in goods, the management method with the Export Verification Form for Foreign Exchange Collection will be cancelled; the foreign exchange authorities and the banks will no longer make a note of the amount of the customs declaration or deduct (or increase) the receivable foreign exchange quota from exports through the online inspection system for customs declaration of imported goods and the online inspection system for foreign exchange collections and settlements from exports; the customs will maintain the current operation of issuing and printing the certification sheets for receipts and payments of foreign exchange from the customs declaration for imported and exported goods .

Second, further strengthening the sharing of regulatory information. The GAC and the SAFE will strengthen their exchange of regulatory information in such areas as the data on the customs declaration for imported and exported goods of  enterprises, the information about the classified management of the enterprises, the ratios of export receipts and import payments of foreign exchange of enterprises, and the electronic data on the receipts and payments of foreign exchange for trade in goods of enterprises on a case-by-case basis, and will realize their data sharing.

The execution of the Memorandum represents a management concept and a service consciousness of keeping up with the times and of reform and innovation, while effectively promoting trade facilitation and is beneficial to creating a synergy to rigorously crack down on illegal behavior such as irregular cross-border capital flows, evasion and illegal purchases of foreign exchange, and smuggling, and to effectively safeguarding the security of the foreign economy and finances of China.