The customs services of China and New Zealand will implement an agreement on mutual recognition of the Authorized Economic Operator(AEO) status starting from July 1.

This is the first AEO agreement between China and a country in the Oceania region.

Under the agreement, enterprises granted the AEO status in the two countries will enjoy simplified customs clearance procedures when exporting goods to the other country.

With implementation of the AEO agreement, time of customs clearance of goods will be halved and thus help save logistics costs.

China has been New Zealand's largest trade partner for four consecutive years. In 2016, the bilateral trade volume reached US$12 billion, up 3.5 percent year-on-year.

So far, China has signed AEO agreements with 33 countries and regions, including South Korea, the European Union, Switzerland, New Zealand and Singapore.

China's General Administration of Customs said that more efforts will be exerted to boost mutual recognition of the AEO status with more countries.