The Directorate General of Customs Valuation, Karachi has revised customs value of 23 hardware products imported from China, Taiwan and Thailand for accurate determination of customs duty.
Sources told Business Recorder on Monday that the Directorate General of Customs Valuation had issued a ruling for assessing customs duty on the import of hardware items based on the revised determined values.
Sources said that the local manufacturers of hardware products and Pakistan Industrial Fasteners Manufacturer's Association, Lahore had lodged complaints about the massive under invoicing vis-à-vis import of hardware items, ie screws, self-tapping screws, rivets, bolts, nuts, steel washers from China, Taiwan and Thailand.
The directorate had launched detailed scrutiny of import values of these items to workout realistic values. After analysis of the import data, it was observed that the declared values of these goods in most of the cases were not considered by the assessing authorities as the actual/transactional values under section 25(1) of the Customs Act, 1969.
It further transpired that the actual descriptions of the items were not specifically declared by the importers, therefore, the values finalised under section 25(1) could not be applied for valuation in the light of sub-section (5) and (6) of section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969.
In order to arrive at fair customs values of these items, all the stakeholders were called for discussion/input on the issue. In this regard, a number of meetings in which the importers suggested that nuts and bolts were made from mild steel, iron steel and carbon steel and suggested the value of each category of nuts and bolts.
A meeting with the Pakistan Hardware Merchant's Association (PHMA) was also convened on April 11, 2007 but no one turned up. The said association was again invited on June 4, 2007 for meeting to seek their input in case of another item ie Rivets.
The representatives of the association attended the meeting and subsequently, asked for provision of specifications of rivets. The Directorate General of Customs Valuation provided the size, quantity and origin of these goods to the association on June 14, 2007 but no response was received from them. Subsequently, they were again requested to give feed back on July 30 2007, but no response was given by the association. Finally, the association and Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) were called for meeting on September 7, 2007, but there was no representation from them as well.
Taking into account the response of stakeholders, The Directorate General of Customs Valuation was left with no option but to proceed with determination of the customs values of the aforementioned hardware items on the basis of the market survey under section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969.
The exercise was completed on October 10, 2007 whereby customs values of these items were determined under section 25-A of the Customs Act, 1969 read with 25(7) ibid.
Later, the list of 23 items has been dispatched to all the Collectorates of Customs to ensure that the assessments of these goods are made as per the customs values determined by the Directorate General of Customs Valuation. Presently, the Customs is bound to determine the customs values based on the revised formula.
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