ISLAMABAD, March 8: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz has urged the ECO-member countries to share information for combating the menace of smuggling in the region which he said was causing harm to the local industries.
Speaking at the inauguration of 3rd meeting of the ECO Council of Heads of Customs Administration (CHCA) here on Monday, the minister said the customs officials of ECO countries should work in coordination to combat the menace of smuggling in all the ECO member countries.
Mr Aziz said that the ECO-member countries should particularly share information on narcotics to control its flow within the region and outside. According to the minister, the sharing of information and data would reduce the chances of misdeclaration of value of goods to a great extent.
He said that the ministers of the ECO member countries would be asked to regulate import of those goods which were prone to smuggling. He said the Iranian government had already shown its willingness to ban import of right hand vehicles which were mostly smuggled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"No government institutionalises smuggling. We must identify the roosts of smuggling", he remarked. Speaking on the occasion, member customs, Muhammad Ramzan said that the meeting of customs officials would discuss issues like rans it trade facilitation, establishment of an ECO smuggling and customs ffences data bank and deliberation on ECO rules of origin.
Elaborating further, the member said that more than 60 per cent of exports of the land-locked members of the ECO were affected through transit operations. Similarly, transport volume in the ECO region averaged more than on million trucks, which plied in the region during the last five years, he said.
He said that the intra-regional trade stood at $8.248 billion, which was less than 5 per cent of the total volume of trade, which was $174.3 billion. To overcome this dismal scenario, the member said that the customs service has to match its skills with the requirements of the hour and try to have positive impact on the ability of the trading partners of the ECO region to expand their trade volumes and also to help them in meeting time sensitive delivery requirements.
