Guides · Importing from China
What your supplier writes on the invoice is what gets queried here.
Shafiq Traders · Updated 13 September 2026
Most advice on importing from China is written by a sourcing agent or a freight forwarder standing at the shipping end, and none of them file the Goods Declaration at this end or answer the query when one lands. From the Karachi side, the shipment that moves cleanly is the one where the invoice description, the packing list and the HS code the supplier used actually agree with each other and with the goods in the container. The Certificate of Origin under the Pakistan-China FTA can reduce or remove the duty on qualifying goods, but it only supports that claim — it does not replace the classification, the value or the paperwork the declaration is built on, and it will not get a badly described shipment through an examination any faster.
Written from the desk that files it, not the dock that ships it
A Chinese sourcing agent's job ends when the container is loaded. A freight forwarder's job ends when it is booked on a vessel. Ours starts once it is on the water and does not end until it is out of the port. The advice that gets written from the shipping end is generic for a reason — nobody there sees what a Pakistani collectorate actually queries.
What we see, shipment after shipment, is that the problems on a China import are almost never about the goods themselves. They are about paperwork the supplier wrote weeks earlier, for their own accounting purposes, that does not hold up against a Goods Declaration.
What Chinese paperwork routinely gets wrong
| On the document | What actually goes wrong |
|---|---|
| Invoice description | Written for the supplier's own bookkeeping — "machine parts" or "electronic components" — instead of what the goods actually are. A description that vague cannot be classified with any confidence. |
| HS code on the invoice | Often the supplier's own 6 or 10-digit Chinese customs code, not Pakistan's 8-digit PCT line. It is a reference point, not the code we file. |
| Packing list weights | Rounded per carton rather than actually weighed, so the total drifts from what the container weighs at the terminal — and a weight mismatch is one of the more common reasons a file gets a second look. |
| Unit of quantity | Sets, pieces and pairs get mixed on the same line, especially on multi-item consolidations, so the packing list and invoice do not tie out item for item. |
| Price terms | An invoice priced FOB Shenzhen when the purchase order and the letter of credit were agreed CIF Karachi, leaving freight and insurance to be reconciled after the fact. |
What the Certificate of Origin actually does
Under the Pakistan-China Free Trade Agreement, a qualifying product can be imported at a reduced or eliminated duty instead of the normal tariff rate. That preferential treatment is not automatic — it has to be claimed, and the claim has to be supported by a Certificate of Origin covering that specific consignment.
The certificate is issued by an authority China has designated for the purpose, not written or self-signed by the exporting factory, and it has to match the shipment: the goods, the quantities and the invoice it is presented against. A certificate for the wrong invoice number, or one that does not describe the goods actually shipped, does not support the claim it is attached to.
None of that changes what happens to the goods themselves. The Certificate of Origin decides the duty rate on a qualifying line. It has no bearing on whether that line is examined, and it is not a substitute for getting the classification and the invoice right in the first place.
Where a China shipment actually stalls here
Almost always at one of these points, not at the port gate.
The description on file does not match the goods
An invoice description too generic to classify, or one that does not match what is physically in the container, is the single most common reason a file gets queried rather than assessed straight through.
Weight or count does not tie out
A container weight at the terminal that does not match the packing list, or a carton count that is off by even a few pieces, gets flagged before the file moves further.
The Certificate of Origin does not match the invoice
A mismatch between the certificate and the shipment it is meant to cover does not stop the goods from clearing — it stops the preferential rate from being allowed, and the goods are assessed at the standard rate instead.
A regulatory approval was assumed rather than arranged
Electronics, chemicals and some machinery categories need a specific approval or registration before the goods land, not after. Assuming the supplier or the freight forwarder has handled it is how a shipment sits waiting on a document nobody applied for.
A Certificate of Origin gets you the FTA rate on a qualifying product. It does not get your shipment past an examination faster, and it does not fix an invoice description too vague to classify. We have seen importers treat the certificate as a general fast-pass for a China shipment. It is not one, and telling a client otherwise would cost them more than the duty it saves.
Questions
What importers ask us about shipments from China
Contact
Tell us what is coming.
Give us the product, the port and roughly when the vessel is due, and we will tell you what the clearance involves and what it will cost.