A ship began patrolling the waters near Pingtan Island on Thursday in a bid to step up customs supervision efforts.

The patrol ship, China Customs 2102, keeps an eye on customs activities on the waters surrounding Pingtan Island on July 17. [Photo/pingtan.gov.cn]

Pingtan officially became the country’s largest pilot zone under special customs operation on July 15. It has built an integrated customs supervision and management system around the 324-sq-km island with 408 kilometers of coastline.

To complement the 56 monitoring stations and 112 cameras installed along shorelines and at fishing ports, the ship, China Customs 2102, mainly patrols near geographically sophisticated locations where cameras couldn’t be set up. This is to make sure there is no blind angle of customs supervision, said Liu Jianzhong, an official from the Pingtan Customs.

The 12-meter-long, 3.2-meter-wide fiberglass ship was delivered to Pingtan on June 29. Driving at a speed of 46 knots, it will sail on multiple routes every day to carry out a comprehensive patrol.