CIRCULAR OF THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN TRADE AND ECONOMIC COOPERATION ON ISSUING THE INTERIM MEASURES GOVERNING THE EXPORT OF SILVER

Circular of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation on Issuing the Interim Measures Governing the Export of Silver

Foreign trade and economic cooperation commissions (departments, bureaus) of the various provinces, autonomous regions, municipalitie directly under the Central Government and municipality separately listed on the State plan, and foreign Trade and economic cooperation Enterprises Concerned:

The Interim Measures Governing the Export of Silver approved by the State Council are printed and distributed to you, please abide by.

Note: The foregone document WaiJingMaoGuanFa [1999] No.702 is cancelled and this one shall be taken as the standard. Attachment 1:Interim Measures on Governing the Export of Silver

In accordance with the relevant provisions stipulated in the Foreign Trade Law of the PRC, these Measures have been worked out for the purpose of carrying out the instruction on reforming the management of silver given by the State Council and exercising control over export of silver.

Silver mentioned in these Measures refers to silver powder, Un-Calcined silver and semi-product of silver (see attachment for specific items under control).

Export of silver reserved in the People's Bank shall still be handled in accordance with the prevailing provisions.

The state exercises control over the export of silver with quota license system, and it shall be implemented in accordance with the Enforcement By-laws of Interim Measures on Report, Transmission and Implementation of Export Quota issued by MOFTEC (WaiJingMaoGuanFa [1998] No. 980).

Enterprises which have been checked and ratified to have qualifications for dealing in export of silver by the MOFTEC shall be allowed to deal in the general trade for export of silver. And in the light of the principle of survival of the fittest, every year the MOFTEC shall check and ratify the enterprises engaged in the general trade for the export of silver once and announce the relevant enterprises.

The MOFTEC has authorized the Administration of Quota and License Affairs to check and issue the export licences for silver. The Customs shall examine and release the silver by the export licenses.

The organs issuing certificates authorized by the MOFTEC shall strictly examine and verify the qualifications of enterprises for dealing in the export of silver, the quota quantity and export contracts, and then check and issue export licenses.

When a processing trade enterprise has imported the goods containing silver not included in the list of silver products in Article 1 of these measures for processing and re-exporting silver, it shall submit an application, and its processing trade shall be examined and approved by the competent department of foreign economic relations and trade at provincial level in the place where the enterprise concerned has registered. And the Customs shall, by the Approval Certificate for Processing Trade, handle the registration and filing procedures for the export contract. And in the light of the specific characteristics of the silver production, the competent department of foreign economic relations and trade shall state in the remark column of the approval certificate that "the amount of the imported materials approved by the Commodity Inspection shall be taken as the standard amount of the silver for re-export".

Within 180 days after the import of the materials for processing trade, the competent department of foreign economic relations and trade at provincial level shall report the amount of the silver to be exported by the relevant enterprise, the commodity inspection certificate for imported materials, the processing technology of the relevant enterprise, the consumption per unit, etc. to the MOFTEC, and at the same time make a copy of the above mentioned information to be submitted to the State Bureau of Non-Ferrous Metal Industry. And after soliciting the opinions of the State Bureau of Non-Ferrous Metal Industry, the MOFTEC shall handle formalities for approval and reply. In the case where the approved content of the silver for import, consumption per unit. amount of exports to be processed, etc. are inconsistent with what was previously stated in the documents for examination, approval and filing, the MOFTEC shall send a duplicate of the approved documents to the competent Customs for file, and the enterprise concerned shall go through the formalities for alternation of the relevant contract, and the Customs shall supervise and cancel the amount after verification according to the consumption per unit amended. The enterprise concerned shall apply for an export license from the Quota License Bureau with the documents approved by the MOFTEC. The Customs shall examine and release the relevant products by the export license.

In the case an export enterprise violates these Measures and other relevant provisions governing the export, and once the case has been proved to be true, a punishment of reduction of the export quota, until cancellation of its right to deal in export of silver shall be imposed upon the enterprise concerned.

In the case the relevant previous provisions were inconsistent with theses Measures, these Measures shall be taken as the standard.

These Measures shall be put into force as of the date of January 1, 2000. The previous provisions shall still be effective for the case where an enterprise has gone through the formalities for putting the silver processing trade contract on file after the above mentioned date.

LIST OF SILVER	EXPORT UNDER CONTROL
Specifications Code of Coordination System Silver Powder	71061000
Un-Calcined Silver (including lumps, ingots, grains and casting strips, etc.)	71069100
Semi Silver Products (including calcined bars, sticks, threads, boards, slices, bands, pipes,foils and shape materials, etc.)	71069200

The above mentioned "silver" refers to pure silver, excluding the silver plated with gold or platinum, silver alloy and the products with other metals or materials as bottoms and covered with silver or plated with silver.

Paper Money Printing and Minting Head Office of China
Copper Lead Zinc Group Company of China

Laws of the People's Republic of China

CIRCULAR OF THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN TRADE AND ECONOMIC COOPERATION ON ISSUING THE INTERIM MEASURES GOVERNING THE EXPORT OF SILVER