Smuggling has been dwindling on the south China coast. The region's intensified anti-smuggling operations have resulted in an increase in local revenue.
Anti-smuggling officers in south China's Guangdong Province dealt with 21,152 cases of smuggling between July 2000 and June this year, and confiscated smuggled cargoes worth 5.88 billion yuan (about US$708 million).
More than 2,600 suspects were detained, of whom, 1,930 were convicted of smuggling, said local sources.
Thanks to the increased anti-smuggling efforts, Guangdong netted 30.15 billion yuan (about US$3.63 billion) in tariff revenue in the first half of this year. Last year, the province profited with 65.81 billion yuan (about US$7.93 billion), up 4.9 percent from 2000.
(Xinhua News Agency Septembert 2, 2002)
