BEIJING — China has taken a slew of measures to optimize its business environment at ports and facilitate cross-border trade, said the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on July 29.

The country has simplified regulatory documents in imports and exports, and reduced its customs clearance time, said Huang Guansheng, an official with the GAC.

Currently, the number of documents required in import and export has been decreased from 86 in 2018 to 41, down 52.3 percent, and 38 of the regulatory documents could be verified online, said Huang.

In June, it took 36.68 hours for imports and 1.83 hours for exports to clear Chinese customs, down 62.34 percent and 85.15 percent, respectively from the level in 2017, GAC data showed.

China has also regulated and cleared some port charges to lower the compliance costs in imports and exports and make customs clearance more informative and intelligent.

In 2019, China was ranked 56 out of 190 economies in terms of trading across borders, data from the World Bank showed.