July 6, 2003	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 5,1424

ISLAMABAD, July 5: Importers have asked the government to reduce time limit for review of cases of misdeclared or under-invoiced consignments to six months from the current three years.

Officials told Dawn on Saturday the customs act authorized the officers to review and order enquiries in those cases in which the department felt the goods imported were either misreported under a different product code to circumvent high duty brackets or were under-invoiced with the objective of paying less amount of customs tariff.

To take counter measures for this, the officials said the customs authorities could send show-cause notice and review the matter even after three years of the actual release of goods or the consignment.

The importers approached the Ministry of Commerce and argued that this long timeframe acts as an extra burden for the SMEs, both in terms of costs incurred and the time spent in dealing with the legal complexities. They asked the government that the decision to this effect might be announced in the forthcoming trade policy 2003-04.

It was also proposed to the government for the purpose of facilitating the small and medium sized entrepreneurs, the time bound proceedings in customs appellate tribunals be specifically determined, mentioned and implemented.

In this regard, as a first step it was recommended that the cases in which the amount of customs duty in dispute did not exceeded Rs500,000, the cases should be decided by the tribunal within 15 days.

Bonded warehouse facilities have generated special enthusiasm among import-led export oriented industries. To sustain such interest, the procedures for providing bonded warehouse facilities to industries be further simplified and extended to industries recognized as 100 per cent export oriented industries.