On November 7th, the Convention on the Cancellation of the Certification Requirements for Foreign Official Documents (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention") came into effect in China. The Commercial Certificate and Certificate of Origin of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade are included in the scope of additional documents recognized by the certificate. On the 7th, the Trade Promotion and Exchange Center of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade issued the first commercial certificate for the national trade promotion system to handle additional certificates.
The Convention has a total of 125 contracting parties and is the international treaty with the widest scope of application and the largest number of contracting members under the framework of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, aiming to simplify the process of cross-border circulation of official documents. Its core content can be summarized as "cancellation" and "attachment". Cancellation "refers to the mutual cancellation of the consular authentication process between contracting states. "Additional" refers to the use of an "additional certificate" issued by the competent authority of the issuing country to replace the authenticity of the seal and signature on the consular authentication verification document.
Taking a commercial certificate as an example, this certificate is a document issued by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) in accordance with Chinese laws, relevant regulations, and international trade practices to prove documents and facts related to international commercial activities. Its legality and validity are accepted by governments, customs, chambers of commerce, and enterprises of various countries. Before the entry into force of the Convention, some countries required that commercial certificates be subject to consular authentication by their embassies and consulates in China, and applying enterprises often faced problems of uncontrollable time and cost. After the entry into force of the Convention, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China replaced the consular authentication of foreign embassies and consulates in China with the issuance of additional certificates for commercial certificates, greatly facilitating enterprises.
On November 7th, China International Shipping Co., Ltd. became the first enterprise to obtain the commercial certificate of the first additional certificate. After obtaining the power of attorney commercial certificate issued to the Saudi Arabian partner, it immediately obtained the additional certificate issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The person in charge of the company happily stated that compared to the consular authentication that used to take 18 working days to obtain certification, the entire application process only took 3 working days, and it saved the high consular authentication costs of foreign embassies and consulates in China, greatly facilitating the authentication process of the company's cross-border commercial documents, and promoting the company's cross-border investment and business management of overseas institutions.
Yan Yun, Director of the Trade Promotion and Exchange Center of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, stated that the trade promotion system will play a role in connecting government and enterprises, integrating internal and external sources, and smoothing supply and demand. It will actively cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and relevant local foreign affairs offices to implement the performance work, with the issuance of commercial certificates with additional certificates as the focus, continuously standardize and optimize the certification process, effectively improve the quality of the trade promotion certificate of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, and achieve a "certification acceleration", Enable Chinese enterprises to enjoy the significant benefits brought by the efficient cross-border circulation of additional certificates as soon as possible, and serve the development of China's open economy with practical actions.
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