What we take on, and where we stop.
Brokerage is the core of it. The regulatory and logistical work exists because, in this corridor, a producer cannot sell without it.
Finding the buyer and getting to terms.
- Market access
Identifying and qualifying Chinese buyers, importers and distributors, and opening channels that fit your product and volume rather than whichever door opens first.
- Market research
Buyer trends, competing products, price positioning and demand in your category — grounded in current trade and regulatory sources, not assumption.
- Representation
Presenting your product to wholesalers, distributors and industrial buyers, and carrying the technical detail that a sales agent without regulatory grounding cannot answer.
- Negotiation
Working through price, terms, volumes and delivery on your behalf. Final pricing and every commitment stay with you.
- Contract support
Helping structure and finalise clear sales agreements, including the conditions precedent that keep an order from proceeding before the regulatory position is settled.
- Relationship management
Keeping the line open between producer, distillery or plant, and buyer once the first order has shipped. Repeat business is where a China channel actually pays.
The work between a signed order and a cleared shipment.
These are carried out by licensed specialists. We select them, brief them, and hold the schedule together — which in practice is the part that fails when nobody owns it.
- Regulatory pathway
Establishing what your product legally requires to enter China: producer registration, product classification, applicable certificates, and the origin-country standards that govern how it must be produced, bottled or packed.
- Documentation
Assembling and tracking the full document set for both jurisdictions — certificates of origin, health and sanitary certificates, free sale and authenticity certificates, and the declaration data Chinese customs now requires.
- Labelling
Chinese label content is a regulatory document, not a translation exercise. We work it through before artwork is finalised, when changes are still cheap.
- Shipping
Negotiating freight terms, container costs and routing with forwarders, and selecting ports of departure and entry that suit the cargo and the buyer.
- Inspection
Arranging licensed inspection at departure and arrival, and defining what acceptance means in the contract before a dispute makes it urgent.
- Payment and security
Coordinating between buyer, seller and banks on payment structure, letters of credit, bonds and insurance, so the commercial terms and the cash flow match.
On scope. Customs clearance, freight forwarding, inspection and banking are regulated activities performed by licensed parties. Norlanta coordinates them; Norlanta does not perform them and does not hold those licences. We would rather state this plainly than let it be assumed.
The order matters more than the effort.
Most failed China entries are not lazy. They are well-executed in the wrong order — artwork printed before the label rules are confirmed, buyers approached before the product is legally admissible.
- Step 1
Establish admissibility. Can this product, as currently produced, legally enter China at all? Sometimes the answer changes the product before it changes the plan.
- Step 2
Register. Producer registration with Chinese customs, and the origin-country certifications that support it.
- Step 3
Qualify buyers. Approach the channels that match the product, with a regulatory position already settled so the buyer is not asked to carry that risk.
- Step 4
Terms and conditions precedent. Agree commercial terms with the regulatory milestones written in as conditions, not hopes.
- Step 5
Produce, ship, clear. Labelling approved, documentation assembled, inspection arranged, declaration filed correctly the first time.
Not sure which step you are on?
That is usually the useful first conversation.