The National Board of Revenue is going to launch a web-based customs procedure at the Chittagong Customs House on July 1 to end hassle for exporters and importers, reduce transaction cost and time in the international trades and check duty evasion, NBR officials said.
To this effect, the NBR will introduce ASYCUDA World, a customised software for customs management system, at the CCH and the software will later be introduced at all of the major customs houses for establishing interconnectivity among the ports, they said.
‘As part of automation, the NBR will launch the latest version of automated system for customs data, known as ASYCUDA World, on July 1 at the CCH for providing services online to the exporters and importers,’ NBR member (customs) Nasir Uddin told New Age on Monday.
He said that exporters and importers would be able to submit their bill of entry and bill of exports online from anywhere and they would not need to come to the customs offices for the purpose.
The NBR gradually will introduce the system at other major customs houses including Dhaka, Kamalapur ICD, Benapole and the customs houses would be interconnected, he said.
Officials said that exporters, importers and other stakeholders in the international trades would be able to submit their cargo manifest, bill of entry, bill of export and other declarations online.
Customs officials will get the documents instantly after the submission and take necessary actions to provide customs clearance to the businesses which will reduce their time and cost in the international trades.
The process will also prevent corruption and ensure transparency of customs officials as the NBR high-ups will be able to monitor the customs clearance process live through the central server stationed at the NBR headquarters.
‘The NBR will be able to track whether any official holds back unlawfully any file of businesses,’ said Syed Mushfequr Rahman, additional project director of ASYCUDA World implementation project.
The ASYCUDA World will have a system of getting data related to letter of credit, invoice and other documents from the Bangladesh Bank and it will help to prevent under-invoicing, duty evasion and irregularities in opening letter of credit, he said.
In the existing system which uses ASYCUDA++ software, traders submits all the documents such as cargo manifest, bill of entry, bill of export manually which delays the process and increases cost of business.
Businessmen also try to evade duty through under-invoicing and to manipulate the manual process, the NBR officials said.
They said that there would be a valuation component containing current price of products in ASYCUDA World system.
The NBR will also incorporate its current manual valuation database into the software.
Customs officials will be able to check actual prices of products instantly and they will be able to prevent under-invoicing duty evasion, the officials said.
According to the NBR plan, it will launch cargo manifest module of ASYCUDA World on July 1 and open bill of entry and bill of export modules at the end of July.
By October or November, ASYCUDA World would be fully operational.
-With New Age input
