Several express trucks carrying fresh fruits on Saturday started a journey from northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, making a direct trip to Almaty, Kazakhstan, capitalizing on the expedited customs clearance privileges.
This express line employs high-performance large trucks for seamless cross-border transportation of goods. In accordance with the "International Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Controls of Goods" guidelines, the goods on the trucks can be dispatched from the originating warehouse and delivered to the destination warehouse without customs inspections or container openings along the route, thereby significantly reducing clearance time and transportation costs.
In this mode, customs officials handle the consolidation, loading, and inspection procedures for the exported produce at a fruit and vegetable wholesale market located in Xinjiang. Once these vehicles reach the Horgos Port, a major border junction in Xinjiang connecting China and Central Asia, they can proceed directly to Kazakhstan without further delays.
This streamlined and efficient cross-border transportation process means much lower cost for exporters.
"For our merchants, this is a significant advantage as it reduces transportation time. Previously, going through the port procedures would add an extra day to the transit. But the express trucking mode saves a day of transportation time and eliminates the need for two transshipments. Merchants can now complete all relevant customs procedures here in one go, providing them with great convenience and benefiting their business tremendously," said Zhou Kai, person in charge of the wholesale market for agricultural products.
In the past, the transportation process of exporting fruits and vegetables from key markets in Xinjiang to Central Asia involved transporting the goods to ports for inspection and customs clearance. This procedure not only consumed a significant amount of time but also led to substantial losses of perishable produce.
However, the fresh customs clearance mode is now establishing a door-to-door transportation system with Central Asian countries. This streamlined approach has reduced the transportation time sharply by more than 50 percent, while also minimizing goods loss by around 3 percent.
Xinjiang's fruits make inaugural journey on express trucks to central Asian market
Xinjiang's fruits make inaugural journey on express trucks to central Asian market
Application for China's annual tour guide license exam, which began on Saturday, is posting a significant growing momentum in various regions.
The exam consists a written test and an interview. The written part was held on Saturday, and interviews will be concluded before Dec 22, covering policies and regulations, basic knowledge, and service abilities.
For example, the number of candidates who registered for the exam in northwest China's Shaanxi Province this year reached 15,440, an increase of 62.3 percent over last year. A total of 5,363 candidates registered in the northeast China's Jilin Province examination area, an increase of 71.34 percent year on year.
In the past two years, the tourism industry has been gaining momentum, and the cultural tourism industry across cities and tour guide markets have been complimenting each other, said tourism experts.
"This year, the number of people applying for the national tour guide qualification certificate is about 310,000, far exceeding the 200,000 last year. After we have the tour guide qualification certificate, we have the right to apply for a tour guide certificate and then engage in tour guide-related business. Among the 650,000 certified tour guides, 93 percent speak Chinese, 6 percent speak English, and the rest speak minority languages," said Wang Xiaoyu, researcher at the Tourism Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
China has fully entered the era of mass tourism, and as the tourism market matures, consumer demand for tour guides is also constantly changing and upgrading, which is mainly reflected in three aspects, according to Wang.
"There are mainly three changes. The first is that our domestic tourism market is actually transforming from sightseeing to theme leisure vacation. At the same time, the tourism service industry is also constantly being customized in small groups, which puts forward new requirements for tour guides, such as customized services and personalized services. Second, the supply and demand of the entire market is actually reversing. Now we need a large number of high-quality tour guide teams to serve the market and serve consumer groups. The third is our online development. The digitalization of the entire cultural and tourism industry, especially the digitalization of tour guide services, is becoming more and more obvious. So it's important to make good use of Internet tools and online new media tools and do a good job in our online tourism promotion and online cultural and tourism services," said Wang.
Application for national tour guide qualification examination posts growth momentum
