Sino-russian Trade In The "gray Customs Clearance" (1991-2007)

Nowadays it's an opening world. There is no exemption that one country can survive and make development under the situation of ego-containment in the modern society. The opening world can be visually summed by the word of "the global village". Foreign trade is the core of foreign economic relations between countries in the world. It plays an irreplaceable role in the development of any country and is one of important means of accelerating economic development. Russia is one of the most important neighbour countries of China. There is a potential market in Sino-Russian trade due to economic mutual complement. After Sino-Russian relationship normalization in 1989, the trade between two countries have recovered and developed rapidly. With steadily advancing of Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership and signing of Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, Sino-Russian trade relation has made steady progress. Russia has become China's eighth trading partner and second one in Europe while China is Russia's fourth trading partner and first one in Asia-pacific region.Now Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation does not match two big countries' status and economic strength. And it is even far from the requirement of Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership development. Gray Custom Clearance that emerged in a special historical period of Russian economic transition is induced by Russian government's corruption, market management confusion in Russia and Chinese businessman's aleatory mentality in pursuit of profit maximization. This innormative trade pattern exists widely in trade between China and Russia. It is difficult for Chinese enterprises and businessmen to get truthful and legal customs declaration documents by "Plane-charted" or" Duty-paid" trade. Chinese commodities are often confiscated by Russian enforcement service and interests of Chinese enterprises and businessmen can not be protected. The problem of Gray Custom Clearance has become the bottleneck of Sino-Russian trade and restricted the orderly sustained, rapid and sound development of Sino-Russian relationship.Taking into the consideration of the history and status quo of the Sino-Russian trade development, the thesis expatiates on the meaning, background, content, risk and existing problems of Gray Custom Clearance in Sino-Russian trade. By analyzing and comparing two cases, Shoes from Wenzhou were confiscated in Flower-and-Bird Market and Yekaterinburg one after another in Russia, the thesis discusses and demonstrates some reasons of Gray Custom Clearance in Sino-Russian trade from theoretical and realistic perspective such as deficiencies in Sino-Russian trade management of Chinese government, unregulated behaviors of Chinese enterprises and existing problems in Russia. The paper gives prominence to Chinese government's public management responsibility and importance in foreign trade. Some proposals and suggestions on Gray Custom Clearance in Sino-Russian trade are proposed from the perspective of government, enterprises and international cooperation. First, management system for Sino-Russian trade should be innovated. Second, Chinese enterprises' competitive advantage should be developed. Third, Russian government should strengthen the supervision and administration over Gray Custom Clearance. Fourth, international cooperation should be enhanced to promote healthy development of bilateral trade. Only by taking appropriate measure to supervise and administrate Gray Custom Clearance, strengthening multi-level communication and regulating the ways of trading with Russia can the governments of China and Russia promote a sustainable, rapid and healthy development of bilateral trade and achieved the objective of bilateral trade value of 60-80 billion dollars in 2010 put forward by two countries' leaders.