PESHAWAR: A three-day professional training programme for customs clearing, forwarding and border agents concluded here on Saturday, where the officials of customs department and the Federal Board of Revenue told them to strictly follow the customs rules to avoid complications during the course of their duty.

The training was arranged by the directorate of training and research (customs), Islamabad, under customs agents rules 99, at Model Customs Collectorate here.

The clearing agents were imparted training regarding customs rules 2001, import, export policy and documentation, concessional SROs for manufacturing industries, trade agreements like Sapta, Safta, FTA with China and one customs and clearance procedure under WeBOC.

A large number of members of Frontier Customs Agents Group (FCAG) participated in the training.

Speaking on the occasion, President FCAG Ziaul Haq Sarhadi expressed gratitude to collector customs Dr Saeed Jadoon, director general directorate of training and research (customs) Mohammad Javed Ghani, additional director Azood-ul-Mehdi and other higher authorities of Pakistan Customs for arranging the trainings.

He said organising such trainings had been the longstanding demand of FCAG and Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry because training for Peshawar-based customs clearing, forwarding and border agents should be held in their own station instead of Islamabad.

Mr Sarhadi said the training workshop would enable the customs clearing, forwarding and border agents to complete the process of customs clearance in a better manner.

He also expressed special thanks to the trainer customs officers and the training coordinator and said customs clearing agents besides playing role in enhancement of national revenue were also promoting the businesses of import and export in the country. However, he also requested the FBR to initiate steps to address the problems of customs clearing, forwarding and border agents.

He was confident that in future training sessions for the clearing agents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be arranged in Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2018