SL Customs in final stages of full automation

Sri Lanka Customs is in the final stage of automating whatever procedures that could be automated to ensure that legitimate trade is facilitated with a minimum delay and minimum cost said, Dr. Neville Gunawardena, Director General of Customs addressing the annual members – evening and fellowship of the Imports Section of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce held on Wednesday in Colombo.

He said paperless clearing system installation is in the final stages, and the main objective is to go paperless which would immensely benefit exporters and importers.

The ASYCUDA World system was in the process of being fully implemented with air cargo too covered in a short span of time he said.

For the first time in the history a target was set up to collect over Rs one trillion as tax revenue in 2012. From which the Customs Department was entrusted with collecting Rs 570 billion on exports and imports. Rs 570 billion is approximately 57 % of Rs one trillion and that shows the contribution expected from the Customs Department towards the tax revenue. Generally in the first half of the year the department manages to collect 38 % and in the second half of the year 52 % of the target he said.

“In the second half of 2012 we have seen a decline in the imports of vehicles mainly due to the increase in duties and taxes.

The reason for this was last year the country's imports cost US $ 20 billion against US $ 10 billion export revenue. As a result the government decided to discourage certain imports.

The main target being motor vehicle imports. But statistics now show that there is a drop in all imports except of the construction industry were the imports of items such as cement and tiles have gone up. Other than that there have been a steep decline in other imports,”he said.

The objectives of customs can be divided into several areas. The main area is revenue collection, secondly the prevention of restricted and prohibited imports and exports, trade facilitation, coordination and cooperation with other stakeholders who intellect in import and export business and compiling statistics of imports exports and sharing it with stake holders. These are the main areas of the Customs, he added.