A person in charge with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said the Ministry took a great account of the case that the warehouse of over 20 shoe-making factories of Wenzhou in Russia was closed up with shoes taken away by Russian tax-police. An order was given that the economic and commercial section of the Chinese Embassy in Russia take the matter up with the related Russian department so as to maintain fully the lawful benefits of the Chinese enterprises and businessmen in Russia.

As learned, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce made an urgent appointment to meet the Russian commercial representative to China the very day, requesting that Russia strengthen its forcible hit on the illegal customs-clearance co. in order to avoid shifting the responsibility of illegal operation onto the Chinese enterprises and businessmen and that an earnest investigation, and just and fair handling be made in regard of the matter and to inform the Chinese side the result of the case-handling as quickly as possible.

According to the responsible person, the relevant departments of the Chinese and Russian governments had already set up a joint working group for regulating the bilateral order for trade and so the two parties should within the framework have a good solution of the occurred problem in the trade by way of consultation.

The responsible person said, at present there witnessed a relatively serious problem of "gray customs-clearance" in Russia and when many Chinese goods entered Russian border through the channel they were unable to get customs-clearance certificates while the Russian department for the law-execution closed and confiscated the Chinese goods frequently on the pretext, making the Chinese enterprises and businessmen in Russia to suffer a great loss there. To prevent the happening of the likewise cases, the Chinese enterprises should enhance their consciousness for lawful operation and declare at the Russian customs through legal channel and ask for whole set of customs-declaration certificates and make sure that the certificates correspond to the goods declared so as to prevent the illegal customs-clearance co. from reaping unfair gains for maintaining their own lawful benefits.

As reported the 12th afternoon Russian Time the Russian tax-police closed down a Chinese shoes-container warehouse of over 10 kilometers away in the southern suburbs of Moscow on the pretext that they failed to carry on declaration at customs via official channel and so were considered as the smuggling goods. And a huge group of Russian police carried away the very night the shoes kept in the warehouse, valuing at more than RMB 80 million yuan, of which over RMB 60 million yuan of shoes were made in Wenzhou, involving in it some 22 enterprises.

By People's Daily Online