New Tracking, Monitoring of Cargo Rules notified: Rs175m annual turnover a must to obtain licence: FBR

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has allowed companies having a minimum annual turnover of Rs175 million or financial worth of Rs100 million to obtain licence for tracking and monitoring of vehicles and containers carrying transit/imported cargo.

The FBR has issued SRO996(I)/2023 to notify new Tracking and Monitoring of Cargo Rules, 2023 on Wednesday.

Under the new rules, the annual turnover has been reduced from Rs350 million to Rs175 million and financial health from Rs200 million to Rs100 million for the companies intended to apply for the licenses for tracking and monitoring of vehicles and containers carrying transit cargo.

Import/export cargoes: FBR tightens procedures for tracking, monitoring

Top customs officials said that the FBR will undertake a bidding process in September 2023 and the amount of financial health and annual turnover has been reduced to open the process for new companies as well.

A simplified procedure has been issued to encourage small companies to participate in the bidding process seeking licenses for tracking and monitoring of transit cargo.

According to the senior FBR officials, the procedure for obtaining licenses for tracking and monitoring of transit cargo has been simplified to end the monopoly of one company. The small companies would now also become eligible to participate in bidding for obtaining licenses.

Under the new rules, the procedure shall apply to tracking and monitoring of the following types of cargo throughout the journey from the port of entry to the port of exit or from one warehouse to another, on real-time basis.

The applicant shall be required to provide technological solutions on the basis of GSM or GPRS or satellite communication or any other modem technology for monitoring and tracking, on real-time basis, of containers and vehicles carrying the cargo.

The applicant shall possess the specified qualifications to be considered for issuance of licence.

The system-based solution offered by the applicant shall be able to perform the functions of monitoring capability on a real-time basis of a minimum of 3,000 containers or trucks from licencee’s control room; monitoring and tracking of vehicles and containers throughout the journey from Customs point of entry to Customs point of exit on a real-time basis.

No company shall carry out tracking and monitoring of cargo unless it has obtained a licence under these rules, it added.

The licencees shall furnish, establish and maintain a section relating to performance monitoring of the licenced tracking companies in the central monitoring and control room (CMCR) in the old Customs House, Karachi or in any other control room designated by the Board.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023