NBR to ease customs procedure to facilitate int’l trade

Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to eliminate some unnecessary and less-important customs procedural steps aiming at facilitating international trades, officials said.
They said, every customs house has separate procedures to release imported goods and there are some redundant processes. These steps will be eliminated under the Business process re-engineering (BPR).
For an example, the importers have been asked to produce several documents like Business Identification Number (BIN) during duty assessment of imported goods. But, these are available in online and the officer can see through online easily, if he/she wants.
Besides, the importers are to place some documents before the related other government agencies, which is unnecessary as well as time consuming. So, these will be eliminated, they added.
Businesses, however, expressed apprehension over implementation of the system as other related government offices are yet to be automated.
Mohammad Hatem, Executive President of BKMEA, told The New Nation, “We welcome the initiative. But, speculation exists over implementation as other related offices are not yet automated.”
Implementing the BPR, the NBR will provide an electronic platform for stakeholders to file their statutory documents like Bs/E, S/Bs, IGM EGM and track their movement and status electronically.
It will also strengthen Risk Management System to avoid error in releasing goods from ports, the NBR officials said.
The revenue board has also taken Accredited Clients Programme (ACP) and Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) scheme to grant assured facilitation to importers who have demonstrated capacity and willingness to comply with the laws of Customs which is required to implement, the officials said.  
They said all the customs houses have already exchanged views with the concern stakeholders in this regard and analyzed the procedural activities. As per the recommendations, the NBR has taken measures to implement the BPR in the customs houses to release imported goods faster.
As per the directive of the NBR, Customs houses will issue notification by three to six months in this regards as those are implementation institutions.
Partha Pratim Barua, Executive Committee Member of Chattagram Clearing and Forwarding Agent Association, said, “The initiative is very goods and wants quick implementation. NBR had taken many steps earlier, but those are yet to be implemented properly.”
The initiative will improve service delivery, reduce waste and save money and will increase the transparency of government data, he said.
The BPR will help to cut off the unnecessary processes involved in customs operations that are worthless for business growth.
The best example of BPR is to switch the manual data handling to a database management system that improves the business process and reduces the chances of error, the officials said.
Bangladesh for its steady and robust economic growth has acknowledged the necessity of trade facilitation. In general, trade facilitation involves improving the efficiencies of procedures related to the cross-border trading process.
It necessitates a comprehensive and integrated simplification effort, leading to a reduction of time and cost in international trade. Customs is the lead agency to facilitate seamless international trade by streamlining and simplifying clearance procedures.