The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is pushing through with plans to automate customs bonded warehouses (CBWs) in the Philippines by 2016.
In a text message to PortCalls, BOC Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group deputy commissioner Atty. Agaton Teodoro Uvero confirmed that a technical working group (TWG) has been created to formulate the customs memorandum order (CMO) requiring automation of CBW operations starting next year.
Automating and including CBWs in BOC’s electronic-to-mobile (e2m) system has been one of the proposed projects of the agency since early last year.
BOC-accredited value-added service provider InterCommerce Network Services, Inc. (INS) president Francis Lopez, in text messages to PortCalls, said the draft memorandum is being finalized, and pilot implementation of the project is targeted for January 2016.
Members of the TWG include the Customs Bonded Warehouse Operators Confederation Inc. (CBWOCI), Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. and INS.
Lopez said all CBW operations will have to be automated—from import, inventory, export, and liquidation to the formula of manufacture and bonds management.
He added a meeting has been set this week to discuss deliverables and timetables.
Automating CBW operations will result in “streamlined procedures, cost reduction, enhanced compliance to customs regulations,” he said.
CBWOCI president Bobby Yatco, in a phone interview with PortCalls, said the group supports the planned automation as it will “generate less corruption (and increase) efficiency of the process protocol”; it will also mean “less signatures (and) release of goods much faster.”
A CBW is a BOC-accredited warehouse where imported articles (raw materials, semi-finished materials, components, and packaging materials) are stored. These imported materials do not carry duties and taxes if intended for use in finished products destined for re-export within a prescribed period. But if withdrawn for local consumption, they are levied duties, taxes, and other charges.
Since May, BOC has required all facilities that temporarily handle and store imported goods at the agency’s ports to apply for license as CBW operators. Uvero said this is part of a reform project to “ensure that we continue our work to harmonize and simplify procedures on port operations, and to ensure that uniform and transparent rules are applied to all concerned.”
Late last September, BOC issued CMO 30-2015 which required a review and re-accreditation of all accredited customs facilities (ACFs), including CBWs. Under the CMO, ACFs are being required to have a Web-based inventory management system that authorized BOC officials can access online.
As of September 2014, BOC has registered 96 CBW operators, although there are actually 114 warehouses nationwide, with some operators managing more than one CBW. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
