Importers enjoying bonded warehouse facilities under the Customs Procedure Codes IM-7 must appoint a customs clearing and forwarding agent listed with Automated System for Customs Data World system within September 15, according to the National Board of Revenue.
Non-listed C&F agents are no longer eligible to process any declarations related to goods which are assessed and cleared under the bonded warehouse facility without payment of duty from September 16, according to a notice issued by the NBR on August 23. volvo overseas delivery tourist
The NBR made it mandatory to submit a bill of entry through the ASAYCUDA World system to promote transparency and reduce the time of import clearance from August 3, 2022.
The NBR also issued orders to list the C&F agents with the ASAYCUDA World system and extended the deadline four times with the interest of trade facilitation, according to NBR customs modernisation officials.
There are about 10,000 C&F agents in 42 customs stations across the country and less than 30 per cent of them are listed with the ASAYCUDA World system, they said.
Manipulation of the import declarations is a common trend for over-invoicing, they said.
Besides, the process of manual import declarations is also a time-consuming process that impacts industrial supply chain, they said.
Chittagong Customs Clearing and Forwarding Agents Association general secretary Md Altaf Hossain Chowdhury informed New Age that most of the customs agents at Chittagong Customs were listed with the ASAYCUDA World system.
‘Almost all the declarations relating to import and export are now processed online though the import declaration process is mostly conducted manually,’ he said.
According to World Customs Organisation annual report for 2022-23, a total of 19,48,752 import and 26,63,620 export related declarations were processed online in Bangladesh.
About 82 per cent of declarations were submitted through the ASAYCUDA World system and were processed in less than three days, according to a case study titled ASYCUDA Compendium 2022: Digital Interconnectivity for Inclusive Trade.
Among the total 46 customs stations of the country, 31 stations operated digitally while 15 customs stations still depended on paper-based declaration processes, said the study.
express parcel delivery Editor: Nurul Kabir, Published by the Chairman, Editorial Board ASM Shahidullah Khan on behalf of Media New Age Ltd.