 | Ctg customs house goes automated
06 October, 2008
The automation project of Chittagong Customs House (CCH) kicks off its full-fledged operations today in a bid to herald a "corruption- and hassle-free era" in export and import procedures.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed will formally launch the project by filling in an electronic bill of entry form at a function to be held at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in Dhaka.
Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) sponsored the project and worked for around eight months to complete it on build-own-operate-transfer basis.
The automation will cut customs formalities to only five steps against the existing 42, trimming both hassles and time, said CCCI President Saifuzzaman Chowdhury at a press conference in Dhaka yesterday.
The project will lower the cost of doing business by 40-50 percent and save time by three to four days in terms of completing customs procedures.
"Apart from contributing to more revenue generation, the automation will protect businesspeople from harassment," Saifuzzaman said.
It is estimated that the user-friendly procedures would help stop evasion of government revenue by at least Tk 350 crore a year, the CCCI president said.
The government set a Tk 15,474 crore revenue target from CCH in the current fiscal year against the previous fiscal year's revenue of Tk 13,942 crore. This growth has been estimated mainly on the basis of the automation project's success.
The processing cost for each export or import document will come down to Tk 50 from existing Tk 70.
Saifuzzaman said the automation scheme will cover all clearing- and forwarding-related activities including manifestation of export and import, writ management, law and litigation management, duty and valuation assessment, bill of entry licence, security and auction system, reported news agency BSS.
Operations of Import General Manifest (IGM) and Export General Manifest (EGM), the two vital components of the automation, started a few months ago. All the activities of the CCH will be done online from today.
Stakeholders like the clearing and forwarding agents, exporters, importers and their banks and insurance companies will be able to get their port-related jobs done online, the CCCI president said.
The Chittagong chamber invested around Tk 2 crore initially to set up the backup infrastructure of the automation project.
The chamber president said the CCCI carried out the automation project under a five-year agreement with the port authority and the government, making it a unique example of public-private partnership, reported BSS.
The deal was signed on April 13. Data Soft, a local IT firm, provided software and maintenance supports with full local expertise. The project work was initiated as part of the reforms undertaken by the taskforce in June 2007.
Release link:http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=57423
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