After China’s accession to the WTO, the right to import and export operation has been released, a large number of manufacturing enterprises have enjoyed the right of self-operated export, and large quantities of low-price and high-quality Chinese products have had a good sale at abroad. This has produced impact on relevant production industries of many import countries, and subsequentially, made plentiful Chinese products subject to anti-dumping at abroad. These products subject to foreign anti-dumping will be levied a high-amount anti-dumping duty when being declared by the importers of importing countries. Export by means of third-country transshipment is an effective way to avoid high-amount anti-dumping duty.

I. What’s third-country transshipment?

    Where some restricted products are exported by means of transshipment, the goods will still be shipped at a Chinese port, but won’t be transported to the destination port directly, and instead, they would be transported via an International transit port, and the direct route would be changed to that: In the first carriage, the goods containers would be shipped from a Chinese port to a transit port, and the containers were exchanged and re-shipped at the transit port; in the second carriage, the containers would be shipped from the transit port to the final designation port. During exchange of containers, the country-country export documents would be completed, and the third country’s certificate of origin and relevant supporting export documents would be used as foreign importer’s customs clearance documents.

II. What’s anti-dumping?

    Anti-dumping duty aims to resist dumping and protect domestic industry. Generally, the party concerned of an industry impaired will bring forward the fact of exporting country’s dumping, and request local country’s governmental institution to levy anti-dumping duty. The governmental institution will investigate the price of such products, the fact and degree of industrial impairment, and levy anti-dumping duty after confirming the exporting country’s low-price dumping.

III. Advantages of third-country transshipment

   Transshipment may help enterprises solve the problem of anti-dumping duty. Through third-country transshipment logistics and by providing a third country’s certificate of origin, enterprises may enjoy a favored nation’s tariff policies. Your products will obtain a greater market again if only you select a lawful way, transshipment through a third country.

IV. Where to execute transshipment generally?

    It’s relatively appropriate to execute transshipment in such countries and regions as Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, etc. Besides the certificate of origin of these several countries or regions, the certificate of origin of the third countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, etc. in the Southeast Asia is often used as transshipment document. It’s necessary to select an appropriate transshipment port, provide the certificate of origin of supporting corresponding countries and regions, integrate and improve supporting aspects of from logistics process to export documents.

V. Transshipment Operation Process

    1. A freight forwarder company starts to ship goods from any port of China, and delivers the goods safely to a transit port of a third country.

    2.Before the goods depart from Chinese Mainland, the freight forwarder company will arrange the schedule for the second carriage upon customer’s demand, pick up containers in time and exchange containers at wharf warehouse after the first-carriage (China – Transit Port) ship arrives at the port. When exchanging containers, the freight forwarder company will take photos to ensure the integrity and safety of goods.

    3. After exchange of containers, the freight forwarder company will load the containers onto the second-carriage (Transit Port – Destination Port) ship, and will obtain the original of bill of lading and certificate of origin in around 5-7 working days. Here before, the freight forwarder company will check the documents, etc. with Chinese shipper.

VI. Products Suitable for Third-Party Transshipment

    The troublesome transshipment is just for saving money, and raising the competitiveness of products. Transshipment is suitable for the following three types of products:

    1. Products of high quota price: By means of transshipment through a third country, and providing supporting third country’s certificate of origin and relevant export documents, it is available to save relatively considerable expenses.

    2. High-value anti-dumping products: Foreign anti-dumping duty rate is not too high, but the tax base is relatively big, so third-country transshipment is suitable for such products.

    3. Goods of low value and high anti-dumping duty rate: For example, the anti-dumping duty of carbon steel fasteners is up to 89%, and in condition of such high tariff carrier, importers cannot execute import normally, and it’s relatively good for them select transshipment.

VII. Risk of Third-party Transshipment

    It must be made clear that, any mode of trading has risks, but the risk of transshipment trade is not higher than that of common mode of trade.

    Third-country transshipment logistics mainly has the following risks:

1.Risk of Losing Goods Control Right

    Generally, for individual enterprise’s lack of credit, exporting enterprises cannot control goods, or goods are lost. Therefore, it’s very important to select a highly credible and large-scale transshipment transportation agent.

   Suggestion: Cooperate with large-scale companies having many years of experiences in transshipment trade operation.

2.Risk of Unavailable to Conduct Customs Clearance at Destination Port

    The reasons why it’s impossible to execute customs clearance of goods include the authenticity of documents and the examination of customs at the designation port. In the market, some companies allege that they could do transshipment transportation, but cannot provide authentic documents, so they provide customers with false documents, and as a result, problems occur during customs clearance at the destination port, and this increases the risks of the foreign trade enterprises doing transshipment trade.

Suggestion: The present transshipment trade market is in chaos, mainly because that many freight forwarder companies having no strength for transshipment provide false certificate of origin of transit countries. This problem will be discovered during counter-check at the destination port, and will result in high-amount fine. It’s suggested to cooperate with transshipment logistics providers who could provide authentic and reliable documents which could ensure customs clearance at designation port of the transit countries. If only the documents are authentic and effective, no problem will occur during customs clearance at the destination port.

3. Policy Risk

Importing country’s customs will investigate transshipment transportation, monitor the quantity of corresponding products imported from a third country, and will possibly strengthen the examination on the products from the third country, inducing relevant risks.
Suggestion: The core of transshipment trade service rests with the transshipment operation of the third transit country, and the most important factor in the third-country transshipment operation is to guarantee the authenticity and reliability of relevant various documents. Only in this way, will it be available to effectively evade the risks brought about by examination.
  To sum up, when determining to do transshipment trade, you must select a good transshipment logistics provider in earnest. Precisely, you must select a large-scale company which has many years of experiences in transshipment trade operation, could guarantee the authenticity of third country’s documents and cooperate with counter check, so as to minimize the risks of transshipment trade.