ASEAN customs to start harmonizing tariffs next year

ASEAN customs to start harmonizing tariffs next year

JAKARTA (JP): Heads of customs administrations from the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) pledged yesterday
to facilitate smooth flows of goods and agreed to use harmonized
tariff terminology by next year.

The ASEAN customs director generals also formulated an ASEAN
customs vision 2020 during their two-day annual meeting in Bandar
Seri Begawan, Brunei, which ended yesterday.

They said they would speed up the implementation of harmonized
tariff terms to simplify trade transactions.

"This would avoid unnecessary confusion or complexity at the
border about the appropriate classification of a product and
facilitate cross-border flows of goods in the region," they said.

Brunei, the Philippines and Singapore will implement the
system starting next year. Indonesia will work toward
implementing it next year. Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam will
implement it in the year 2000.

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar -- three potential ASEAN members
that attended the meeting as observers -- will adopt the system.

The director generals also agreed to an initial set of
procedures where work on harmonization should begin.

These include correlating business hours for border customs
offices and allowing declarants to lodge provisional or
incomplete customs declarations to release their goods and submit
all the necessary information within a specified period.

They also agreed to allow lodgement, checking and registration
of goods declarations prior to their arrival. And to allow pre-
clearance of goods and explore simplification and harmonization
of procedures for goods in transit.

They agreed to look into establishing common procedures for
temporary admission of goods, and ways to improve green lane
systems for some goods.

Because of the increasing competitiveness of the world's
economies, they formulated the customs vision to provide a
framework and focus for ASEAN customs activities.

"We agreed on the following vision for the year 2020: an ASEAN
customs partnership for world class standards and excellence in
efficiency, professionalism and service, and uniformity through
harmonized procedures, to promote trade and investment and to
protect the health and well-being of the ASEAN community," they
said.

To realize the vision, they agreed to collectively develop
administrative and technical cooperation on customs.

Technical cooperation includes procedures for goods in transit
and temporary admission, automation, cargo processing, tariff
classification, customs valuation, rules of origin, post-entry
audit and risk management.

On automation, they agreed to develop an ASEAN electronic data
interchange (EDI) that would comply with United Nations Rules for
EDI for Administrations, Commerce and Transport.

Indonesia uses the EDI system to back up its new customs
procedures that began last month to expedite customs document
processing.

As most importers do not yet subscribe to the EDI system,
Indonesia's customs office will continue to provide manual
processing of declarations until June 15.

But customs officials have made it clear that the customs
office will not accept manually-processed declarations after June
15.

After this date all declarations must go through the EDI
system or be handed to the EDI center on diskettes. (rid)