HONG KONG Customs recently visited Shenzhen to introduce its new Road Cargo System (ROCARS), Xinhua reported.

The system is to be officially rolled out in March and will have 18 months of break-in period before full implementation.

Under the new operation mode, all registered users of the ROCARS with the HK Customs and Excise Department, including shippers and truckers or their freight forwarders, provide pre-defined set of cargo information to customs through ROCARS 30 minutes before the consignment enters or exits Hong Kong by truck.

As an acknowledgment, ROCARS returns a reference number for the cargo consignment to the shipper who then passes it on to the relevant trucker.

About 30 minutes before his truck arrives at a land boundary control point (LBCP), the trucker does the "bundling" work by providing to customs, through ROCARS, the reference number of the cargo consignment and his vehicle's registration number; and customs performs risk profiling on the cargo before a truck arrives at an LBCP and determines in advance whether the cargo needs to be inspected.

The arrangements will enable customs officers to conduct risk profiling on cargo consignment in advance, for determining whether a truck needs to be inspected. All cross-boundary trucks, except those selected for inspection, will enjoy seamless customs clearance at the land boundary.