Pakistan Customs has not yet finalised any mechanism to exchange trade related information with Customs China. This was disclosed by collector appraisement (East) Saeed Akram at a meeting of FPCCI's Standing Committee on Customs at Federation House on the other day.
He said vision behind exchange of trade data with China was nothing but to get correct information regarding declaration, descriptions, quantity and values of goods; adding that the mechanism in this regard was yet to be finalised with Customs China.
He was optimistic saying that after its implementation, Pakistan Customs would be able to eradicate the menace of under and over invoicing. Furthermore, he said there was huge difference between export values of goods from China and declared values in Pakistan and hoped that it would be Herculean task to transfer money through Hawala, Hundi or other illegal means after implementation data exchange mechanism between the two countries.
Earlier, chairman FPCCI Standing Committee on Customs Arshad Jamal and Supreme Council of All Pakistan Customs Agents Association (APCAA) chairman apprised that traders were poised to declare correct values of goods figures and presently, six percent of total trade volume was being released on true transactional values and declaration under green channel.
While lauding the efforts of Pakistan customs for drafting mechanism to get real transitional values of goods through data exchange with China, he urged the collector customs to rationalize taxes parallel to smuggling cost in order to discourage it.
He also proposed to allow relief to the traders on consignments stuck at different ports for long, due to lapse of procedural requirements; adding that FBR was keen to auction these consignments but reticent to give any relaxation to its actual importers for its release, which not only creating liquidity problems for the business community but also restrained revenue authority to realize substantial revenue.
Presently, importers remain unable to pay legitimated duty and taxes on these consignments, due to high port charges and unjustified container rent, Arshad said and urged the authority concerned to exempt container rent and port charges along with procedural relief in order to recover stuck revenue.
Moreover he said they convened meetings with terminals in this regard and appreciated M/s DP World (Port Qasim) to exempt all port charges just on a token money of rupees Rs 0.1 million for all the consignments lying at ports for over three years.
He also suggested the collector customs to conduct 'Online Auction' as per international standards to avoid malpractices; adding that no schedule was so far fixed for auction but if the FBR board constituted separate authority or centralized auction module, auction could be done with no delay and in transparent manner.
He recommended the increase in EIF limit up to $10,000 and hoped that this measure would reduce trade deficits up to 30 percent and enable small traders to continue their businesses. Later, Collector Customs assured the committee to forward the said recommendations for budget discussion. UBG leader S M Muneer and FPCCI senior vice president also attended the meeting.
Comments
Comments are closed.