KARACHI (May 07 2003) : The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) plans to extend the Pakistan Goods Declaration (PGD) to other collectorates in the country from July.
The CBR has taken the decision following the successful experiment of the administrative document, which replaces half a dozen customs clearance documents, at Port Muhammad bin Qasim.
The PGD format was reviewed and improved in the light of suggestions received from various collectorates at a high level meeting of the customs collectors from all over the country held at the Port Qasim Collectorate recently.
The Collector of Port Qasim, Amir Marwat, briefed the participants about the success of the PGD as a pilot project at Port Qasim.
He said that the PGD had replaced various customs documents like bill of entry for home consumption, in-bond and ex-bond, safe transportation, shipping bill, baggage declaration and transhipment permit.
The document is standardised and harmonised with the customs declaration formats adopted the world over.
The PGD will ensure that the data collected by the Pakistan customs is more accurate and systematic and it has gone a long way in streamlining and simplifying the customs clearance procedures.
A representative of National Trade and Transport Facilitation Committee (NTTFC) gave detailed background of the PGD.
He said that the document was universally accepted and had been developed in accordance with the UN-designed layout.
The senior Project Manager of Pakistan Revenue Automation Ltd (Pral) informed the participants that initially the stakeholders at Port Qasim were provided with the facility of help desk, but the users prepared the PGD on their own computers.
He said that about 2,500 copies of the PGD CDs had been distributed free of cost among the users.
The meeting discussed in details the proposals submitted by the various collectorates for improvement in the format of the PGD.
The changes made in the format, which included re-adjustments of some columns for providing space for examination reports, bank stamp and signatures of the customs staff, were forwarded to the CBR for approval.
All the collectors, the customs staff and clearing agents should be given adequate training to familiarise themselves with the new document.
The meeting noted that the implementation of the PGD would provide major advantages to the stakeholders, mainly saving of time and cost of trade, availability of a platform for electronic filing of declarations, time saving on Pral data entry and re-entry/amendments, easy handling and maintenance of customs records and data.
The meeting was attended, among others, by Abdul Wahid Khan, Collector, Appraisement; Mahboob Saqib, Collector, Preventive; Lutfullah Virg, Collector, Lahore; Ikramullah Ghori, Collector, Peshawar; Munir Qureshi, Collector, Quetta; and Rasheed Ahmed, Collector, Hyderabad.
