The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is planning to establish an electronic interface between Pakistani Customs and Afghan Customs to share information about operational activities on real time basis to check massive misuse of Afghan Transit Trade (ATT).
Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that the FBR had issued instructions to the Collector, Model Customs Collectorate (MCC), Peshawar, to submit recommendations to improve Afghan Transit Trade. Under the proposal, an electronic exchange system would be developed between Pakistani Customs and its Afghan counterpart for implementation of the new system.
When contacted, a tax expert said that the system of electronic interface between Pakistani-Afghan Customs was only possible in cases where such kind of electronic technology was available to the Afghan Customs authorities. They said if Afghanistan was equipped with the latest electronic technology, this kind of system could be implemented between two countries.
The sources said that Pakistan had no problem to electronically track Afghan Transit Trade consignments and movement of containers till crossing the Pak-Afghan border. According to the sources, the shipping lines used to give prior information about containers to Pakistan Customs prior to their arrival at ports. An easy way to resolve the issue of electronic interface between Pakistan and Afghanistan was to provide a User ID of Pakistan Customs Computerised System (PACCs) to the Afghan Customs authorities.
This would resolve all problems of data exchange as Afghan side would exactly know about the movement of transit containers through the internet facility, they said, adding that if the PACCs ID was being provided to Afghan Customs, they would have prior knowledge about the movement of transit containers and other information like container number, serial number and all kinds of data about the transit consignments.
The tracking of ATT containers could easily be monitored by Afghan Customs through clearance system data, they said. Experts suggested another proposal to check misuse of Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA), and said collection of duties and taxes on transit consignments by the Pakistani Customs on behalf of Afghan Customs authorities. During examination of transit containers at Karachi, the duties and taxes could be collected by Pakistan Customs on behalf of the Afghan government.
The collected amount could be subsequently deposited with the Afghan Customs bank accounts on regular basis. In this way, there would be no chance of missing containers in view of already collected duty by Pakistan Customs. Once the duty was collected by Pakistan Customs, there would be very little chances of smuggling during ATTA, they added.