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As a free port, the HKSAR maintains minimal import and export documentation
requirements. Most products do not need licences to enter or leave Hong
Kong. Licences or notifications are only required if the HKSAR needs to
fulfil its international obligations, to protect public health, safety,
environment, or intellectual property rights, or to ensure Hong Kong's
unrestricted access to high technologies and hi-tech products. Products
that require import or export licences include textiles and clothing,
strategic commodities, rice, chilled or frozen meat and poultry, pharmaceutical
products and medicines, pesticides, radioactive substances and irradiating
apparatus, left-hand-drive vehicles, ozone-depleting substances, and optical
disc mastering and replication equipment.
The HKSAR maintains a certification of origin system
to facilitate its exports to overseas markets. The Trade and Industry
Department administers this system and issues certificates of origin.
In addition, the Government has designated five organisations to issue
certificates of origin — the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce,
the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Indian Chamber of Commerce
Hong Kong, the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, and the
Chinese General Chamber of Commerce.
To maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness in the global business community,
the Government has been promoting the wider adoption of electronic commerce
in the trading community since the early 1990s.
Global e-Trading Services Limited and Tradelink Electronic
Commerce Limited are currently the service providers providing front-end
services for the electronic submission and processing of certain official
trade-related documents. Such services are known as the Government Electronic
Trading Services (GETS) and are available for seven government-related
trade documents: restrained textiles export licence, import and export
declaration, production notification, certificate of origin, dutiable
commodities permit, cargo manifest (excluding road mode of transport),
and notification under the Textiles Trader Registration Scheme. |
