China's first intelligent supply system for cruise ships officially started operation on Monday at Xiamen Port of east China's Fujian Province with supplies loaded onto a cruise ship following digital approval through a supervision platform.

The supplies of 94 categories were approved on the Digital Supervision Platform for Cruise Ship Supply. Then, under the supervision of Xiamen Cruise Port Customs, they were loaded onto the cruise ship Piano Island at Xiamen Port.

Supplies for cruise ships are larger in quantities, diversified in categories, and tighter in loading and unloading times compared with conventional cargo ships.

Usually the entrusted agencies should complete supply declaration procedures 48 hours in advance. In the traditional reviewing mode, enterprises had to print out mounting paper documents for approval, which are not very accurate, efficient, but costly.

In case of errors, omissions, or modifications, the documents had to be submitted time and again, consuming huge manpower and material costs.

With the intelligent supply system, enterprises could submit their declaration only once and then make necessary amendments to correct errors and upload additional supporting documents online through the platform.

The streamlined process eliminates the time-consuming offline submissions and communication, reducing the overall operation from four days to just one day.