Chongqing- Facing the current epidemic situation in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, the city recently launched an emergency mechanism for foreign exchange businesses to release enterprises from cross-border settlement issues.

24/7 foreign exchange service hotline

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Chongqing Foreign Exchange Management Department of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) released the phone numbers of liaison officers to receive emergency consultations online, with a 24/7 open line.

The department has organized a WeChat group participated by the commercial department and foreign exchange banks to collect enterprises' foreign exchange service needs, coordinate the response and provide services.

The department guides enterprises in handling foreign exchange administrative business through the online administration system, the cross-border financial service platform led by SAFE. It also directs banks to strengthen mobile banking, online banking, and other electronic channel services and fully use the cross-border financial service platform to ensure cross-border settlement.

Financial institutions respond with solutions. The Chongqing Branch of the Bank of China launched an emergency plan for cross-border business, clarifying the emergency handling procedures for cross-border remittance, spot settlement, and sale of foreign exchange, capital projects, and others.

For example, a petrochemical company has trade payments requiring repeated seal use. Due to the epidemic's impact, it was inconvenient for them to handle sealed files repeatedly.

Therefore, the bank has decided to review the electronic remittance information first. When passing the review, the company submitted sealed materials, avoiding repeated corrections from discrepancies in the submitted information. With the green procedure, the company completed the remittance of funds the next day.

During this epidemic round, the Chongqing Branch of the Bank of China handled 93 cross-border payments with 171.3 million U.S. dollars. Chongqing Branch of ICBC, Huaxia Bank, China Minsheng Bank, and local commercial banks have also ensured the continuity of cross-border business through various means.

Technology enabling online processing

The cross-border financial service platform has played a prominent role in cross-border settlement and financing services such as domestic freight payment.

A freight company needed to make an urgent domestic freight payment, but it was facing cargo detention due to the epidemic.

Chongqing Branch of Industrial Bank guided the enterprise to apply for freight invoice verification and domestic remittance through their online service platform, which is developed based on the state cross-border financial service platform. It took only 10 minutes to complete the payment.

Since November, the cross-border financial service platform has facilitated 284 domestic freight payments of Chongqing enterprises in the amount of 19.8 million U.S. dollars, supporting the smooth cross-border logistics in the city.

Chongqing reported 164 newly confirmed local cases and 7669 new asymptomatic carriers on November 29, a slight decrease from the previous day, according to figures released by the municipal health commission.