China customs chaos and delays (China to Hong Kong)

[100LL]

During all the years in Hong Kong I have seen it all. Sometimes it's just difficult to get goods from China to Hong Kong, no matter what forwarding company you use. Sometimes it's just the holidays that make it difficult, like the upcoming week.

But now it seems China customs suddenly decided to inspect every single parcel that leaves China and no matter it's a small pieces of card board box (pear of sneakers) or a huge shipping container full with steel screws, it will be stuck for weeks. No matter who in the forwarding industry you talk to. All comes to a halt.

We have goods stuck in Shenzhen. For small stuff we will just go get it in person, but for small stuff the forwarding companies are now talking about 20 days and our "safety protocols" simply say wait it out... (been seeing this for a decade)...

It's from China to Hong Kong, not the other way around. Otherwise I would guess it's the iPhone launch that is causing all this.

Out of curiosity, does anybody know what's going on?

[flameproof]

Maybe:

http://www.ywcbt.com/news_show.asp?id=606

[hongkong7]

Don't get me started . The cross border customs delay is getting worse and worse : random shoved into a mile long queue to use a lone Xray machine . Not to mention similar queues for a lone immigration officer at the 24hour crossing early hours this morning : China side is just more and more hassle :it's the price to pay for mainland tourist essentially : China side haven't up their game to cope . Rant over

[365print]

It's due to a smuggling case and a counterfeit case.
Merchants Face Delivery Delays from China Suppliers

I import goods from China every week, but this delay is causing serious issues for my business. I have one package on the Sept 19th and another on 22nd, but neither arrived as of today.

All forwarders are slow. Don't let any forwarders say they can expedite shipments. It's all lies. I paid extra money to go through customs faster, but it's still slow.

[flameproof]

Still issues?

I had a large box that was collected for me in Shenzehn and went yesterday out with SF Express about 17:30 - and I had it on my lap at 09:45 today. That's the way I like it!

[wtbhotia]

Yesterday recd a 4.6KG Helium Gas Tank which was shipped out on Oct 4th from North China so its still good

[100LL]

Seems all good again, received a couple of parcels today (SF express).

[East_coast]

I have heard 2 stories of why the customs in China dealing with Hong Kong businesses is so slow at the moment

1) Large increases in Heroin being smuggled
2) A tax dodging dossier is being built up for targeting 'un-patriotic' companies at a later date

[alph]

Have used services from SF, King Kong and TGX these couple of weeks, the latter two were stuck for a really long time.

I think SF Express is the only one operating pretty normally, and its likely that they either paid the customs under the table to have the checks expedited, or that they are not checked as vigorously because when they pick up a package, they are careful enough about its contents so the customs is more lax with them.

[mrgoodkat]

@alph: SF's speciality is shipping between the Mainland and HK, that's how they started out. They are also the courier service with the most restrictions on what you can ship. They refuse about 90% of the stuff we are regularly sending. But when they ship something they are fast.