Importing From China: The Definitive Guide

Importing From China: The Definitive Guide

  • If you’re importing goods from China
  • Then this is a must read guide for your busienss. Why?
Because this article will guide you on every process of import from China and provide helpful tips for your business
Whether you have problems on shipping from China, tradeterms, customs clearance or any other topics. I have the right tips for you.Keep reading
CHAPTER. 01
Importing from China help tons of people skyrocket their business;
And I’m sure you can benefit from it and boom your busienss with the big Chinese manufacturing market.
So let’s dive right in.

Why you should Import from China

China is a global manufacturing and trading powerhouse. It is also the leading exporter in the world today.

Now, look around you.

Let’s start with: (They are most probably from China)

A large percentage of items that we see around us are either made or assembled in China. An importer somewhere just did you and me the favor of getting these products from China. And, this is just so that we can access them quickly. But then again, why should you import from China?

Simple!

Importing from China is Good for Business

It makes perfect economic sense. Be it importing from China for personal use or reselling.
Here are reasons why;

  • China offers you a wide variety of goods. Here, you have a choice of what kind of products you should import. Besides, as a business, this can help you to diversify. By doing so, you increase your business’ chances of growing. Diversifying can also help maximize your market share.
  • Products from China are often low priced. This is great as it allows you to resale them competitively thus giving you an edge over your competitors.
  • The Chinese trade sector is growing, and new trends keep emerging. This means that there’ll always be new products on the market. With this, it’s easy for you to sell different products to consumers at different times.
  • China is continental trade-wise. As I’ve told you, it is the world’s second-largest exporter and a trading and manufacturing powerhouse. Importing from China, therefore, provides you with lots of markets at so many different levels. Generally, the country opens up lots of opportunities for businesses and individuals.
  • Cheaper wages, easily accessible materials and expert designers characterize the Chinese manufacturing industry. These three things allow for products to be made quicker, cheaper and in large volumes. Thus, it is hard to dispute that China is just the place to manufacture or even assemble your goods.
  • Another thing, the demand for goods from China is rapidly increasing worldwide. This is mostly due to their affordability. It, therefore, means that you’ll never run out of the market for goods you import from China.
As you can see, China is the right place
to import products from.
The country is just perfectly structured for trade.

Cheaper wages, plenty of resources, expert designers, trade infrastructure, friendly trade laws and all makes China a perfect trade hub.

Top products to import from China

As I’ve told you already, China is a humongous economy.
The country whose economy is on a steady rise since the last few decades now ranks as the world’s largest trading nation.

Here is something that might interest you:

Initially, the Chinese economic model was designed to focus on often producing low-end goods. These goods were then exported in mass volumes to other parts of the world.

Today, however, I must say that China has done well in streamlining its economy to one that is more consumption driven. With the demand for goods in the US, European and Japanese markets are slowly decreasing, the change had become inevitable. New ideas, innovations, and strategies were necessary to help China grab a share at more emerging markets. They also had and still have to meet the expectations of these markets.

That’s why the Chinese manufacturing industry is currently adopting technologies with new levels of sophistication. The type of goods they are producing is not just the usual electronic components and apparels. China today produces a wide range of goods including vehicles, aircraft components, medical equipment, etc. The country is currently moving towards high-value production not the usual low-end goods with mass exports. Honestly, the transformation in China ‘s economy is real and sound.

Even western manufacturers are finding themselves competing with China for global market share.

I mean, with little steps as you can see, China is now dominating world trade. Its GDP alone in 2017 stood at USD 11.7 billion. This is the second best after US’ USD 19.4 billion. You can follow this link to learn more about Chinese economic outlook. As I’ve told you severally, China is the world’s biggest exporter and the largest trading nation in the world.

We can’t expect less of a country whose annual export for goods estimates totals USD 1.904 trillion. Take in 2017 alone for example; China shipped a whopping USD 2.271 trillion worth of goods to destinations across the world. Comparatively, there has been a significant increase in these figures since 2016, an increase of at least 8.3%.

Most of the goods that account for these figures include;

  • Electronic devices and equipment
  • Clothing and accessories
  • Agricultural produce, i.e., cotton, tea, soybeans, potatoes, and rice
  • furniture
  • Plastics and associated items
  • Organic chemicals
  • Vehicles
  • Machines, engines, and pumps
  • Medical and technical equipment
  • Ores
  • Oil feeds
  • Copper
  • footwear
  • confectionary

Those are not the only products that China exports. There are more that unfortunately, we won’t be mentioning today. You can, however, find them online to have a better understanding of the best products to import from China. You also should know what destinations you should import your made-in-China products. Read on to find out more about this.

Main import destinations from China

With the facts given above, it’s pretty apparent that China is a market that’s hard to ignore. Being the world’s largest trading nation, China has worked on its transport infrastructure. Considering the amount of trade ongoing in the country, there are a variety of means for freight transportation.

There is air freight, sea freight, rail freight and courier services in China. The availability of all these make it all the more possible to ship your goods to any destination across the globe Majorly, however, China ‘s import destinations are;

China to the USA

The United States is China ‘s largest and most comprehensive trading partner. The two countries traded an estimated USD 711 billion worth of goods in 2017. Note that there is an imbalance in the trade between China and the US as China imports very little from the US.

This is something that is bringing contention on the state of trade relations between China and the US. Despite this, however, the US remains the largest import destination from China.

The main imports from China to the US include:

  • Furniture
  • Bedding
  • Footwear
  • Machinery
  • Electrical equipment
  • Toys
  • Tea
  • Grain
  • Soybeans

Note that there are lots of convenient ways to transport imports from China to the US. Sea and air freight nonetheless remain to be the most popular mode of freight transportation from China to the US.

China to Canada

Canada is about 5447 miles away from China. This is entirely a distance which surprisingly doesn’t hinder trade activities across these two countries.

You may wonder why and how?

Well, I’ll tell you this, again;

China is a country that has steadily risen to become an economic powerhouse in the globe. This has and continues to open up immense opportunities for people to import goods from the Asian trade giant. These include Canadian companies, small business entities, and individuals.

So if you want to import goods from China to Canada, you needn’t worry as there is an excellent market there. If you don’t believe me, look at these numbers. 2013-2014 trade statistics show that Canada and China exchanged about USD 73.2 billion worth of goods. Among the USD 73.2 billion, USD 52.7 were imports from China. That’s about 71% of the total amount of goods traded between these two countries, right?

Well, there you have it.

And, note that this figure keeps increasing yearly as demand for goods from China keeps rising. So what can you import to Canada from China?

Good question.
The Canadian market seems pretty prime for some goods such as:

  • Electrical equipment
  • Computer and peripheral equipment
  • Broadcasting
  • Communication equipment
  • Telephone apparatus
  • Audio and video equipment
  • Plastic products
  • Iron and steel articles
  • Doll
  • Toys
  • Footwear
  • Women cut and sew clothing
  • Woven and knitted apparel, just to mention a few.

China to the UK

While the UK is a major destination for imports from China, it does not beat the US. UK and China trade a total of about 84 billion dollars’ worth of goods annually.

This is only a third of what the US imports from China. But that’s not the issue. The UK, as I’ve told you, trades about 84 billion dollars of worth with China annually. Out of the 84 billion, about 50 billion dollars are imports from China. This is a record high basing on the 2016 UK China trade statistics. Looking at trade goods, imports from China to the UK totaled 46.9 billion euro in 2016. Comparing these with former years, UK trade with China has increased tremendously.

The best part:

This trade relationship is bound to get even better.
The British Prime Minister made a recent announcement of plans to sign a trade deal that will benefit both countries.

This only means that importers in the UK should be looking forward to an increase in ample business opportunities. Most imports from China to the UK are miscellaneous manufactured articles.

Other imports include:

  • Clothing
  • Electrical machinery and equipment
  • Telecom equipment, etc.

China to Japan

Japan is known as the land of the rising sun. It is a major economic giant just like China and political power too. While both hail from the eastern Asian region and at close proximities, they share a cordial trade relationship. China serves as Japans largest trading partner in term of imports. Being the world most complex economy, Japan imports close to $550 billion worth of goods yearly.

Among these, about $120 billion are imports from China.

These imports include:

  • Mineral fuel
  • Machinery equipment
  • Medical and technical equipment
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Plastics

China to Australia

China also makes quite a significant number of products to Australia. The distance between these two nations is somewhat above 7000km. Interestingly, the economies of China and Australia are to some extent complementary. This makes trade and investment relationship between these nations a substantial aspect.

For a long time, shipping from China to Australia has mainly been through ocean freight. This is necessary considering that the boundaries of these two countries share a large water body. Furthermore, shipping via ocean freight is comparatively cheaper because most of the exports are bulky.

Some of the everyday goods that China exports to Australia include:

  • Communication devices
  • Furniture
  • Electronics
  • Computers
  • Clothing
  • Toys
  • Chinese bottled wine

In 2017, the worth of China -Australia trade was approximately USD 129 billion, a significant increase from the previous year. Incidentally, this is an indication that indeed the volume of imports that Australia receives from China is quite substantial. Shipping from China to Australia can as well be possible using air freight only that it is bit expensive. Nonetheless, it remains the only viable option especially for importing relatively perishable items.

China to Africa

China has for a long time been exporting various types of goods to different African nations. However, in the recent times, the volume of this exports has been increasing tremendously. Of course, that is a clear signal that the trade between these two regions is expanding.

Africa is seemingly one of the largest countries but with many landlocked nations. Therefore, ocean freight doesn’t seem to be the best mode of shipping goods to Africa from China. Nonetheless, countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, Morocco, and Egypt have recorded significant figures regarding imports from China.

Some of the goods that China exports to this region include:

  • Affordable electronics
  • Communication equipment
  • Cutlery
  • Toys
  • Gaming equipment
  • Cloths
  • Machinery
  • Pharmaceutical equipment

Additionally, the African market for Chinese products also seems to be opening up more. This means that the excessively produced goods can find a ready market in Africa. As it stands, China continues to import different products from different products to various African destinations using ocean and air freight.

China to Russia

Arguably, Russia has for the longest time been a trading partner with Russia even during the ancient days. This partnership is attributed to the fact these two nations share a common landmass only separated by a little known Mongolia.

The infrastructural network between China and Russia is what contributes effectively to the importation of goods from the former. Currently, “The New Silk” road and railway network adds significantly to the Russian importation activities of good from China.

As of 2017, the estimated net value of Russia’s imports from China was approximately USD 48 billion. Incidentally, this represents more than 21% of the total goods that Russia import, which is quite a significant number by all standards.

And at that point and by extension today, China tops the list of countries that export different goods to Russia. Machinery Medical equipment is a notable products that China exports to Russia. They amount to about $13. 6 billion. Electronic equipment, footwear and vehicles follow the pack with an estimated amount of $12, $1.65 and $1.6 billion respectively.

The bottom line here is that Russia provides quite a considerable share of the market for various Chinese products. And the importation also becomes easy because transportation between these two countries is convenient.

China to Mexico

The distance between China and Mexico is close to 8000 miles. This distance is quite far, but the fact that the Pacific Ocean separates both countries helps significantly in ocean freight. Mexico imports from China accounts for 17.6% of its total goods which translates to over USD 74 billion

It is a significant figure which places China at the second position after the US by Mexican import goods.

The main imports include:

  • Electronic equipment leads with an approximate value of USD 30.5 billion
  • Machinery with a value of USD 16 billion
  • Medical and technical equipment
  • Vehicles
  • Plastics extrusion machine
  • Toys
  • Organic chemicals among others

As I had stated earlier, a convenient method of transporting bulk goods from China to Mexico is via ocean. Several shipping companies offer transportation of different items using ocean which do not necessarily require urgency. From the port of Shanghai, China to port of Manzanillo, Mexico, it can take slightly between twenty to thirty days for goods to reach the destination.

Of course, that can be somewhat longer especially for transporting relatively perishable products or goods that need to be in the market straight away.

China to UAE

The UAE is among the top 20 largest importers in the world, a clear indication of where it stands when it comes to importing from China. For the longest time, possible China was the fourth largest UAE import destination after India, Switzerland, and Japan. However, as of 2017, China became the leading import destination for UAE if the recent statistics are anything to go by.

Mainly, Chinese products account for 11.4% of the overall UAE imports, which translates to approximately USD 26.5 billion. The leading import products from China to UAE is electronic equipment. These products represent USD 4.4 billion the machinery follows at USD 4 billion.

Other products include:

As one of the leading UAE import destinations, movement of good between these nations is mostly via ocean. However, air freight is also available for transporting goods which seem to be so time-conscious such fashion items.
In a nutshell:
These are some of the leading destinations for importing goods from China. You can still import to other areas using a wide range of transport methods depending on the:

  • Budget
  • Urgency

Basically, you can import to any part of the globe from China. And I can not list very countries here, China ship to almost every country and area in the word.
That aside.
There is need to make sure that you understand all the rules and regulations surrounding importation in China.

And that is what leads us to the next chapter.

CHAPTER. 02
Import Rules and Regulations in China
Ordinarily, every country all over the world has its guiding principles surroundingthe importation of products.

China isn’t an exception.

So if you are interested in importing from china, you might want to learn the country’s specific custom rules and regulations. There are plenty of import opportunities in china. There are also specific rules and regulations that you should know in advance before importing from china.

So without further ado – here is what you need to know about the rules and regulations of importing from china.

Import Licenses when Importing from China

Importing from China requires some paperwork, licenses or some documentation.

These Chinese documentation, will depend on the products you are importing from china and in what scale. For instance, if you are importing food, drugs or medical devices, you may need to get a product specific license. Otherwise, it will be pretty hard for you to import these kinds of goods from china. If you want to set up a company in china to facilitate these processes you will need further licenses.

In addition to the product specific license, you will have to apply for a business license. This is what will indicate the government’s authorization for you to set up an import company in china.

If in the case of setting up a company, you will also need to apply for an export license if importing from china.

This is in addition to the other two licenses we’ve mentioned above. The procedure for applying an import from china license is as follows;

Please note

Before you obtain a license to import from China, there are specific prerequisites that you need to meet. Besides, you all so need to provide all the necessary paperwork to import from china. Obtaining this licenses is not inherently a demanding task especially if you have all the pertinent documentation and knowledge.

Special Trading Zones in China

The ever-growing trading activities prompted China to establish special trading zones all over the country as a way of attracting importers.
What happens is that these zones facilitate trading both for importers and exporters.

These zones also vary slightly. In other words, the authorities regard these zones as being outside of Chinese custom surrounding.

It thus means that any transaction between entities operating inside and outside the zones merely handled on the import-export basis. In simple terms, the Chinese companies that buy from these zones are seen as importers. And, those selling to the zones are seen as exporters, with each paying and receiving duties respectively.

In most cases, these trading zones provide areas for Chinese exporters to coordinate their trading activities.
So you’ll realize that both Bonded and Export processing zones tend to lean much more on Chines exporters.

Importing Documentation and Paperwork

When you’re importing goods from China, it is entirely apparent that you must obtain all the relevant documentation and paperwork.At various stages of the importation, you’ll realize that you’ll need to submit such documents, either copies or original documents.

Documentation that you may need when importing from China include;

  • Bill of lading
  • Airway bill
  • Commercial invoice
  • Packing list
  • Proforma invoice
  • Country of origin certificate
  • Import/export declaration

Acquisition of such credentials and related documents start from the moment you submit the request to a particular company.

This process can be tedious because of the many dynamics involved. So the ideal way of handling it is using agents.

They have a better understanding of how to deal with various elements which require importation documentation and paperwork.

Additionally, things like language barrier may at times hinder you from understanding the concepts.

And it follows that the misunderstanding might lead to going against a particular policy rule which could further lead to more trouble.

Another fundamental aspect regarding the same is always to ensure that you retain at least a copy of every document. This may come in handy in incidents where there is a need for validation of your consignment. And in the end, it helps you to prevent unnecessary inconveniences.

I have some more resources for you here:

Import Duties and Taxes

What happens with importing goods from China is that your company will pay three categories of taxes depending on the types of product it deals with.These taxes include:

  • VAT
  • Consumption tax
  • Customs duties

You will pay consumption tax if you deal with products like motor vehicle accessories, high energy consumption products, jewelry, and cosmetics.

On the other hand, you will pay import duties on the price you pay for the consignment. These include insurance as well as transportation charges.

And the VAT comes in during calculation of the price of the imported goods including consumption tax and customs duties whenever applicable.

Import duties and taxes note are payable at destination. Here are some useful guidelines:

Prohibited, Restrictions, and Quotas

This is an interesting but also a serious concern that you have to look into when importing goods from China.China is very strict in all aspects revolving around exports and imports. And it is for that reason you should know some of the products that are prohibited, restriction and quotas.

So the best, in this case, is to find out the particular items which fall into this specific category. Importance of this is it’ll keep you safe and prevent any unnecessary inconveniences.

Prohibited imports are quite a number, and some of them include:

  • Charcoal
  • Copper
  • Chemical compounds
  • Silicon
  • Natural sand