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The government has developed a roadmap for the implementation of a substantive provision of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement to modernise border customs ports of the country by August 2023.
The framework agreement is of cross-border paperless trade in Asia and the Pacific region with clear tasks, agency responsibilities and timelines to accelerate the implementation of the digital trade facilitation measures for trade and development of the country.
According to the agreement, the NBR should implement the exchange of customs declaration in at least five border crossing points at Akhura, Benapole, Bhomra, Sonamasjid and Burimari with Indian customs to facilitate better risk management and ensure compliant cargoes.
The NBR will soon introduce a pilot test following the standard operating procedure on usage of risk management for conducting post clearance audit and incorporate the outcome of the pilot test into the risk management system to improve the efficiency of customs control.
On March 16, NBR’s customs officials and World Trade Organisation’s stakeholders held a meeting regarding the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement issue where the NBR officials said that they formed a customs legal framework complied with international standards to improve the cargo clearance processes at land border customs ports of the country.
The NBR officials said that they were developing the e-payment and would adopt an electronic cargo tracking system based on the pilot test to help secure and facilitate transit cargoes at border customs ports of Akhura, Tamabil and Sonamasjid.
They said that the NBR would implement streamlined and expedited procedures to resolve bottlenecks in the Akhura, Sonamasjid and Tamabil border customs ports based on the recommendations made by a business process analysis and time release study conducted for the BCPs to streamline the flow of the cargo by August 2023.
The NBR is also working on availing pre-arrival processing at the three BCPs at Sonamasjid, Akhura and Tamabil based on online submission of manifest, to expedite release of international cargo by conducting regulatory impact assessment.
The commerce ministry and the NBR set the first draft of the legal framework to adopt modern procedures to make trade efficient and transparent in 2019.
According to the framework, the government will have to implement at least four out of six measures, including adopting e-payment system, acceptance of copies, non-mandatory use of customs brokers, penalty discipline, temporary admission of goods and inward and outward processing, and transit process.
According to the agreement, the NBR will conduct regulatory impact assessment of the SROs on transit based on at least two points-transit cargo using two designated BCPs and will amend the SRO based on the recommendation of RIA to further improve the flow of international transit cargo.
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