Upon assessment by Jingzhou Customs, 20.16 tons of fresh lotus roots worth 366,000 yuan produced by Hubei Natrich Food Co., Ltd. (Natrich Food) were laded on December 5 before being shipped to the U.S. via Shenzhen Port. This is the first time that Jingzhou has exported fresh lotus roots, marking the entry of its another featured agricultural product into the international market.

Natrich Food is a modern agricultural enterprise engaged in the growing, R&D, processing and sales of aquatic vegetables, including lotus roots, lotus sprouts and lotus root soup. For years, the company has been longing to introduce the brand of "Honghu Lotus Root" to the world. However, the company has made little progress in export due to its unfamiliarity with relevant foreign laws and regulations and procedures of import & export application.

After visiting Natrich Food and learning about its export need recently, Jingzhou Customs fully leverage its functional advantage to help the company prepare for fresh lotus root export: on the one hand, the customs introduced export policies to the company and trained it in technical standards of importing countries, to offer the company a knowledge of the requirements and procedures of product export; on the other hand, the customs guided the company in strengthening source management to constantly improve its level of planting base management, capability of product quality assurance, and product quality. "Thanks to Jingzhou Customs' policy guidance, we have obtained all the qualifications for product export in a short time, and with its timely help to address various problems arising in export, we avoided a lot of detours and saved operating costs," said Liu Xiuhong, Manager of Quality Control at Natrich Food. With the strong support of Jingzhou Customs, the company's export road is becoming increasingly smooth.

To continuously optimize the business environment, Jingzhou Customs has actively implemented the ten measures of the General Administration of Customs (GAC) and the 30 measures of Wuhan Customs for stabilizing and upgrading foreign trade, fully leveraged its functions and technical advantages to help enterprises out, and helped stabilize and upgrade the export of featured agricultural products under its supervision. At the same time, Jingzhou has implemented GAC's measures for canceling the requirements that applicants for filing export food ingredient plantations should provide detection reports on plantation soil and irrigation water, set up a green channel for the customs clearance of fresh and perishable agricultural products, and save export clearance time through measures such as "inspection priority" and "rapid detection". Next Jingzhou Customs will continue to leverage its functional role, implement the measures for stabilizing and upgrading foreign trade, and support enterprises in developing high-end and fine new products, enhancing the added value of products and developing various overseas markets, so as to promote the sound development of Jingzhou's export-oriented economy.