Karachi, December 23, 2023 – Pakistan has decided to keep its customs clearance open on the last two weekly holidays of the year 2023.
(more…)Tag: customs clearance
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FTO Orders Fact-Finding Committee in Case of Non-Clearance of Bentley Car
Karachi, September 25, 2023 – The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has issued directives to establish a fact-finding committee in response to a complaint regarding the non-clearance of a Bentley Continental Car.
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FPCCI hails speedy customs clearance
KARACHI: Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Wednesday hailed the tax authorities for speedy customs clearance to goods imported by erstwhile FATA/PATA.
Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo, President and Nasir Khan Vice President of the FPCCI appreciated the FBR for its efforts to improve ease of doing business and trade facilitation by allowing clearance of goods imported by ERSTWHIL FATA/PATA and installations of tracking devices manually to ensure en-route monitoring and tracking till the development of the functionality in the WEBOC system.
They further informed that under this FBR directives the processing of such consignments may be cleared in the system by the respective Collectorate after implementation of the required conditions as prescribed in the CGO and Board instructions.
M/s. TPL Trakker (Pvt.) Ltd. has been assigned for manually installation of tracking devices for consignments.
Control mechanism for clearance of such consignments will remains with the Collectorate while it may get the written confirmation for concerned clearing agents/bonded carriers.
While referring FBR’s Order issued on March 17, 2021 they said that FPCCI have been emphasizing for development of economically deprived regions through enhancement of transit trade by improving trade facilitations.
They further added that the global economic scenario has drastically changed, e-commerce and digitalization has gained significance for international trade therefore, FBR and other stakeholders should also follow and improve their working according to the new technological development in trade.
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Pre-arrival customs clearance rolled out to five airlines
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Tuesday said that it has extended the pre-arrival custom clearance facility to five airlines.
A FBR spokesman on a pilot project on customs clearance in the Sky that was started with Qatar Airways has now been rolled out to five other airlines.
Urgent shipments on Turkish Airlines, Fly Dubai, Air Arabia and YTO cargo are being processed through customs risk management system hours before flight arrival at Karachi Airport.
Pakistan Customs has introduced a pre-arrival clearance facility last month under its flagship pilot project ‘Clearance in the Sky’ at Model Customs Collectorate (MCC), Jinnah International Airport (JIAP) Karachi.
The cargo manifest is filed in advance immediately after the take-off of the flight from the origin. The advance feeding of manifest allows the traders and their customs clearing agents to file their goods declarations to the customs.
The declarations filed in advance are checked through the risk management system. An electronic message on the release status is sent to the traders while the goods are still in the air.
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Customs empowered to stop vessel departure till payment of dues
KARACHI: Pakistan Customs has been empowered to refuse clearance of vessel until payment of dues including port dues and other charges and penalties.
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FBR issues draft rules for managing risks on clearance of goods, passengers
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified draft rules for risk management system (RMS) for customs clearance of goods and passengers.
The FBR issued an SRO to issue draft Risk Management System Rules.
Through the draft the role and responsibilities of the Directorate General of Risk Management (DGRM) have been explained.
According to the draft rules, the DGRM shall:
(i) Manage risks pertaining to Customs clearance of goods and passengers;
(ii) Plan and implement strategies using various risk management tools and techniques specific to particular transaction types relating to imports, exports and transit of goods and clearance of international passengers;
(iii) Monitor, evaluate and review Risk Management System based on changing national and international trends and feedback from different stakeholders;
(iv) Examine clearance patterns of various sectors and commodities to identify, analyze and evaluate risks and develop mitigation strategies and present the same to Risk Management Committee (RMC) for approval and implementation;
(v) Develop system whereby different stakeholders’ compliance levels are determined. Stakeholders with high compliance level are given different treatment in the system. This may serve as a precursor for developing Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) program;
(vi) Periodically review and address risks identified by the Risk Management Committees (RMCs);
(vii) Putting in place a system whereby information and intelligence is shared with other regulatory authorities and businesses to identify risks and evolve strategies to enhance compliance level;
(viii) Coordinate with Directorate General of Training & Research (DGTR) for training of officers responsible for implementing the RMS in major customs locations;
(ix) Coordinate with Directorate General of Post Clearance Audit to work out parameters for identification of entities and sectors for conducting post clearance audits and after completion of audits, findings are communicated to DGRM in structured formats for improving RMS;
(x) Coordinate with Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation-Customs (DG I&I) to get feedback in the structured format after completion of investigations of cases or studies undertaken by the (DG I&I);
(xi) Maintain security and confidentiality of the RMS, data and records;
(xii) Devise a mechanism to maintain security and confidentiality of RMS and relevant record;
(xiii) Conduct outreach programs for different stakeholders to improve voluntary compliance;
(xiv) Carry out periodical evaluation of the system to identify infrastructure requirements including logistics, HR, IT tools and techniques for upgradation and improvement of RMS; and
(xv) Keep the Federal Board of Revenue apprised of the developments in RMS.
The FBR also proposed Risk Management Committee (RMC), under which:
(i) There shall be a Risk Management Committee (RMC), headed by a BS-21 officer of Customs and shall comprise as many BS-19 and BS-20 officers of Customs as may be notified by the Board, which will convene the RMC meetings to review functioning and supervise implementation of the RMS. The Committee may invite any officer of Customs and representatives of other government departments to assist the RMC whenever required;
(ii) The head of RMC will nominate an officer of the Committee to serve as Secretary of the Committee;
(iii) Meetings of RMC shall be convened at least once every month. The RMC shall perform the following key functions:
(a) Review of the performance of the RMS;
(b) Review of risk parameters and behavior of important risk indicators;
(c) Set benchmarks for interventions or interceptions focusing on targeting the risky consignments or entities.
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MCC Port Qasim directs timely consignment clearance
KARACHI: Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Port Muhammad Bin Qasim has directed all deputy and assistant collectors to ensure timely clearance of consignments.
In a official memo issued to all deputy and assistant collectors, the Collector Port Qasim directed that ensure strict compliance to the directives issued by MCC Appraisement West Karachi.
MCC Appraisement on October 23, 2018 issued related to undue delay in clearance of consignments.
It was pointed out at the meeting of MCC Appraisement West that the importers/clearing agents had to file first and second review in a number of those cases where valuation ruling exists but appraising officer assess the goods at a higher value. This arbitrary assessment is, however, mostly revised in accordance with the relevant valuation ruling by the concerned assistant / deputy collector during second review.
It is further pointed out that the consignments cleared under green channel are stopped by the terminal operators at gate out stage to require documents mandatory for the clearance in terms of conditions of Import Policy Order. In certain cases, due to incorrect feeding of document code in the system, the terminal operator returned the same to the concerned assistant/deputy collector of the group to confirm as to whether or not a certain document is required.
It has been informed that the concerned assistant/deputy collector refer this matter to principal appraiser who forward the same to appraising officer of the group for initiating requisite NOC. This process takes a considerable time.
In order to avoid such undue delays on above accounts, the competent authority has directed that:
a. Assistant/Deputy Collectors of all assessment group shall forward a weekly statement to the respective additional collector, with a copy to the collector, containing details of all such GDs where appraising officer had applied some random higher value despite presence of relevant valuation ruling and the assistant/deputy collector corrected and completed the assessment as per valuation ruling.
b. All assistant / deputy collector assessment groups are directed to provide NOC in respect of green GDs mentioned at their own level after consulting Import Policy Order / other legal requirements, without referring the same to any lower level officials.