Agricultural Machinery and Equipment in Hong Kong

There is no mandatory import product certification for industrial machinery entering Hong Kong, and no customs tariff either. Hong Kong operates no pre-shipment verification of conformity scheme and no pre-export inspection scheme, and no body issues a conformity certificate for goods falling under HS Chapters 84 and 85. Nor are there tariff quotas, surcharges, VAT or GST; excise duty is confined to liquor, tobacco, hydrocarbon oil and methyl alcohol. A buyer who has been told to budget for certification on a tractor or a grain cleaning machine has been misinformed.

The declaration falls due after the goods have arrived

What does apply is a reporting duty that sits on the importer and falls due after the event. Nothing is declared at the border. An import declaration must instead be lodged electronically within 14 days of import, through one of three government-appointed service providers. Late lodgement attracts a penalty charge, and the declaration charge itself has been capped at HK$200 since 1 August 2018. Cargo clears quickly as a result, but that liability does not leave with the container, and it is worth settling in writing which party lodges it.

Voltage matches the mainland; the plug does not

Supply is 220 V single-phase and 380 V three-phase at 50 Hz, exactly as on the mainland, so motors and control gear need no electrical redesign. The plug is another matter. Hong Kong uses the BS 1363 three-rectangular-pin 13 A pattern, with BS 546 round pins on older circuits, not the mainland GB 1002 pattern. Any item leaving the factory on a moulded Chinese plug needs refitting before it can be used, and that is better raised at quotation than discovered on site. One further point of principle: where a supply includes a lifting appliance or loose lifting gear, it is the use of the item that is regulated, not its import, and a Hong Kong competent examiner must test and certify it before work begins.

Public buying

Government stores and goods are bought centrally by the Procurement Division of the Government Logistics Department, with notices on gld.gov.hk and in the Government Gazette; registration on the GLD Notification Lists costs nothing. Works contracts run through the Development Bureau's e-Tendering System for Works Contracts, and no single unified portal covers everything. Hong Kong is a full party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement and applies no local-content preference, which makes it an open market to bid into, if a small one.

Scope of supply

Twenty items make up this division, among them 50 HP tractors, combine harvesters, maize corn threshers, destoning and grain cleaning machines, and 500-litre tractor-mounted sprayers. English and Chinese are both official, so documentation carries no translation burden. We do not sell spare parts and we provide no after-sales service; warranty, installation and training are whatever the supply contract says. ACFTA Form E has no value on a shipment arriving here, since Hong Kong is not a party and there is no duty for it to save.