Importance of certification for smoother cross-border trade stressed at seminar

China will expand its pool of companies certified under the Authorized Economic Operator program and broaden mutual recognition arrangements with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation economies to help more businesses benefit from streamlined cross-border trade procedures, customs officials said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a seminar organized by the General Administration of Customs during the ongoing third APEC Senior Officials' Meeting in Dalian, Liaoning province, they said that these measures would make AEO certification a stronger tool for supporting smaller businesses, boosting participation in trade and fostering a more open, inclusive and resilient Asia-Pacific trading environment.

The AEO program, promoted by the World Customs Organization, is designed to strengthen international supply chain security and facilitate the movement of legitimate goods. Under the program, customs authorities collaborate with businesses to streamline customs procedures and enhance the efficiency of international trade.

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Lazzat Daniyarova, a technical officer at the Brussels-based World Customs Organization, said that integrating more small — and medium-sized enterprises into AEO programs would make the system more inclusive and give smaller businesses greater access to secure trade and sustainable growth opportunities.

Lin Jiantian, director of the GAC's department of enterprise management and audit-based control, said that China will pursue mutual AEO recognition with more economies, enabling businesses across the Asia-Pacific region to benefit from faster and more efficient customs clearance.

"For economies where such arrangements are already in place, customs authorities in China and their counterparts in those economies will assess their effectiveness and explore ways to further expand and improve the facilitation measures," he added.

All APEC economies except Papua New Guinea have AEO programs in place. China has established mutual recognition arrangements with 10 of them, including Australia, Singapore and South Korea.

China's AEO-certified companies recorded 16.76 trillion yuan ($2.49 trillion) in foreign trade in the first seven months of 2026, accounting for 44.2 percent of the country's total, up 5.77 percentage points from a year earlier, customs data showed.

Meanwhile, their trade with other APEC economies rose 21.87 percent year-on-year to 9.19 trillion yuan.

The GAC said that Chinese customs officials will also hold discussions with their counterparts from Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as with representatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Secretariat, with the aim of accelerating AEO mutual recognition and identifying priorities for the next phase of cooperation.

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Andrea Ortiz, head of international affairs at Chile's National Customs Service, said that, as international trade continues to evolve, the AEO program has become a strategic tool for Chile, helping to strengthen supply chain security and to make trade more efficient and predictable.

Olgun Basel, supply chain director at Einhell Germany AG, a German industrial goods trading company based in Shanghai, said that the company's import clearance times have fallen by about 80 percent since it gained AEO certification in February.

Basel said that preparing for AEO certification had also prompted the company to improve its internal controls, documentation and risk management.

Contact the writers at zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn