China's Ministry of Commerce has adopted the Global Trade Compliance technology of TradeBeam to support the nation's new Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Duty Rate Query System. The system provides Chinese exporters with current, preferential and future duty rates. It also includes the customs tariff and duty data of China's FTA partners. The aim, said TradeBeam, is to promote the adoption of free-trade policies by China's foreign-trade enterprises. Applications supported by the system include commodity classification, dynamic duty-rate query, and navigation of preferential and non-preferential duty rates. Under the deal, TradeBeam becomes the official supply-chain technology and global trade-content provider of the Chinese government. China is working with more than 37 countries and regions to set up 16 free-trade areas; it has already implemented eight FTAs. TradeBeam is a vendor of global trade-management software and services, with its applications available in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) mode.
