ISLAMABAD: Clearance of goods containers under the Green Channel has reached 50 per cent of total cargo, leading to reduced dwell time for containers at ports and facilitating trade.

The target is to enhance container clearance via the Green Channel to 60 pc, a senior Customs official told Dawn on Tuesday.

Containers under the Green Channel usually take 15 minutes to clear the port. Around 40pc of the total container traffic is cleared via this channel whereas the rest is done under the Yellow Channel (marked for assessment) or the Red Channel (marked for examination).

The number of Green Channel clearances is affected by the conditionality imposed under the import policy as the Risk Management System (RMS) only clears containers which comply with the import policy.

The Customs official said continuous improvement in the RMS Pakistan Customs have been able to achieve the level of Green Channel clearances up to 50pc of total containerised cargo. “This has impacted the swift clearances from ports, reducing the port congestion and dwell time, and have curtailed cost of doing business,” the official said.

In July 2020, clearance via the Green Channel was up to the extent of 32pc of Good Declarations (GDs) wise and 40pc container wise. The improvements brought through the Risk Management Policy and reform programme by the Pakistan Customs, the clearances at ports through Green Channel have reached to 45pc GD wise and 50pc of total containerised cargo.

From July 2020 up to March 24, 2021, as many as 24, 686 containers have availed the facility of Green Channel at imports.

On the exports side, 74pc of total containers, which are 28,755 containers have been cleared through Green Channel. Other upcoming reforms like Virtual Assessment by computers will bring more trade facilitation removing human intervention and booting exports and economy of Pakistan, the official said.

Pakistan Customs in February 2019 revamped the Web Based One Customs system (WeBOC) by developing and designing an upgraded user-friendly software version ‘WeBOC-Glo’ which was supported by a robust RMS.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2021