Against the backdrop of profound global trade restructuring and rapid digital advancement, Customs regulatory systems are transforming from traditional models to intelligent, ecosystem-based frameworks. This study investigates how smart Customs ecosystem construction drives enterprises new quality productivity. Utilizing cross-sectional data from Chinas 31 provincial regions, the research constructs core indicators including AEO enterprise penetration rate and employs univariate linear regression to empirically examine multidimensional impacts across technological innovation, resource utilization, environmental management, digitalization, and economic structure. Results demonstrate that smart Customs construction significantly enhances trade digitalization index (coefficient: 0.8616, p0.01) and shows notable effects on energy consumption intensity, industrial SO₂ emissions, and specific digital infrastructure domains. However, its influence on high-tech industries and most economic structure variables remains limited. The study identifies four core mechanisms: data connectivity, intelligent prediction, ecological collaboration, and rule optimization. These mechanisms effectively elevate enterprises new quality productivity by reducing institutional transaction costs, accelerating cross-border innovation flows, stimulating innovation vitality, and creating new growth points. The research proposes policy recommendations including strengthening top-level design, deepening data engineering, optimizing precise services, and improving support systems. These measures aim to overcome practical challenges through institutional innovation and technology integration, providing theoretical foundations and actionable pathways for smart Customs to empower enterprise development, offering valuable insights for achieving the smart Customs for a strong nation strategic vision.
Guo et al. (Fri,) studied this question.