Shipping

BoC facilitates e-gateway for Customs, SLPA payments

Payments to Sri Lanka Customs and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority to be made easy when Bank of Ceylon facilitates a gateway shortly.

The Sri Lanka Customs Department (SLCD) and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) will soon automate the payment systems to facilitate electronic online payments to their clients.

Officials at the workshop held recently.

The new scheme will facilitate virtual payment facility where payments could be made at the place of choice. The facility will expedite the process while also saving time and energy, Sri Lanka Port Authority Chairman Dr. Priyath B. Wickrama said.

He was speaking at an industry workshop organised by the Shippers' Academy (SA) Colombo on October 13, 2011 at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

"The software is already in place and soon we will be doing some trial runs with some clients and hopefully by January we will be up and running and nobody should come to the port anymore to make payments," Dr. Wikcrama said. The system will allow clients of the port to log in through the internet and make payments and this information will be updated at the port system and Customs along with the facilitating bank.

According to SLPA even credit cards also could be used to pay e -bills among many other options to the clients.

The SLAP Chairman said this will benefit all clients who work with the port to reduce a lot of work and expedite the process when doing business with the port.

Customs Additional Director General Ajantha Dias confirmed that they too are ready with e- payments and have already done the test runs and requested the trade to use the facility which is now operational with the Long Room and CusDec activity and will be extended to all areas soon.

It was also revealed that, Sri Lanka Customs will be implementing the latest software ASYCUDA World from November 1, 2011.

With the new system the clients should be able to do many documentation processes via the internet, including payments.

It was also mentioned that the payments could be made online from any part of the island as the system would be web based.

This trade facilitation comes to a reality with Customs and the Bank of Ceylon (BoC) working together over the last eight months, and simultaneously SLPA upgrading their financial software.

BoC is the first bank to introduce the e- portal with Customs.

A presentation was made by the officials of the BoC who attended the seminar and they too were confident that the bank could facilitate all importers and exporters through this new system to reduce cost.

It was reported initially that Customs facility will be available with BoC only whilst the Port confirmed that they will soon extend it to all the banking channels.

The institutions also pointed out that at the initial stages they may have teething problems and requested the industry to understand such situations as this is a new system. Colombo Shippers' Academy CEO Rohan Masakorala and other industry participants welcomed the initiative taken by the three institutions and expressed hope that the implementation will be accelerated as this will help local trading community to reduce cost and other related operational aspects in their day-to-day work.

On October 14 the Sri Lanka Customs together with the Bank of Ceylon did the first online payments with clients at a ceremony to launch of the payment gateway between BoC and SLC. (SJ)

CINEC Logistics Day

The Logistics Day, a public event facilitated by the senior students of International Transportation Management and Logistics at the Faculty of Management at CINEC Maritime Campus of Malabe will be held on November 1 from 9 am to 4 p.m.

CINEC Maritime Campus is the largest private higher education organization in Sri Lanka. Established in 1990, it attracts over 14,000 students annually following a range of over 175 courses. The BSc in International Transportation Management and Logistics aims at developing Superior transport and logistics management graduates with well grounded knowledge. It will be an event which will comprise of lectures by prominent personnel of the Logistics industry as well as other activities taking place throughout the day. Other professionals of the logistics industry of Sri Lanka will also attend this event.

Lanka, an ideal maritime centre for IOR-ARC

Sri Lanka is an ideal maritime centre for Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation countries-(IOR-ARC) Countries of Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), an industry expert said.

Sri Lanka is located in the centre of the IOR-ARC member countries that is spread between South East Africa, Middle East, Asia and the continent of Australia.

The regional economies are rapidly growing where a large middle income population is emerging.

It is increasingly noticeable that intra regional trade is expanding along with greater demand for distribution and shipping services. Over the next decade these economies will further expand intra regional trade with the expansion of the region as a whole, Shippers' Academy- CEO Colombo Rohan Masakorala told Daily News Business.

The Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), initially known as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative, is an international organization with 18 member states. It was first established in Mauritius in March 1995 and formally launched on 6 March 1997.

The Association disseminates information on trade and investment regimes, with a view of helping the region's business community better understand the impediments to trade and investment within the region.

These information exchanges have been intended to serve as a base to expand intra-regional trade.

For these emerging economies of IOR-ARC countries? connectivity is going to be an important and an integrated part for better movement of goods and services, Facilitating a reliable supply chain among the region and to manage intra regional logistics and distribution will be a key role that Sri Lanka could play as it connects the region through it's proximity to the world's busiest east and west shipping route with the only Indian sub continent infrastructure ports capable of handling the world's largest ships over the coming two years. Port of Colombo, Hambanthota along with Trincomalee will provide adequate space and capacity to service the needs of the liner industry to operate as the leading distribution hub in the IOR-ARC region.

The location of the country can help liners to focus the country as a relay location connecting the east and the west and could facilitate faster shipping and transit time to reach many destinations of intra regional trade of IOR-ARC nations.

"If we focus on IOR-ARC traffic, we can even create new air corridors that would service the region. Currently unlike the shipping route the international major air corridors are located to the north of Sri Lanka. However, with our new aviation infrastructure in Colombo and Hambanthota combined with the mega sea ports, we should be able to attract new services to handle cargo for sea-air connections as well as passenger capacity enhancement, Masakorala said.

The critical point for international trade today is to reduce lead time on products traded and to receive cargo on time delivery, capacity to consolidate small consignments and reach markets and destinations on time at a competitive price. Sri Lanka would be a natural location for combination of Air and Sea hub for such services provided we work on an integrated logistics plan.

Sri Lanka would be the ideal choice to connect South and East Africa, Indian sub continent and the Far East for all shipping services and to provide logistical support. The service span that the country could extend range from transshipment to multi country consolidation, ship supply, bunkering, passenger and cruise ship handling and maintenance along with other logistical aspects such as storage and distribution. (SJ)