AgroPages-Pakistan Customs set to launch electronic data exchange with China-Agricultural news

Pakistan Customs has completed all arrangements for launching electronic data exchange (EDE) with China.

In this regard, the officials of Chinese Customs will arrive in Pakistan to finalise the launch of EDE. The EDE, which may be operational by this month, will help Pakistan Customs eliminate the menace of under-invoicing and plugging revenue leakages. Recently, Pakistan Customs installed a software to translate Chinese language into English to make the local authorities to understand the invoices.

“The information technology infrastructure necessary for creating linkages with the Chinese customs had already been developed,” Member Customs Muhammad Zahid Khokhar told The News. He said the two authorities had conducted a successful test to verify the invoices.

China is Pakistan’s major trade partner and the volume of bilateral trade is around $13 billion in 2015, of which Pakistan’ exports to China were meager $1.93 billion and imports stood at $11.02 billion.

Besides Pakistan and China signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in 2007, under which the two countries had negotiated concessions and exemptions over a number of traded goods. However, large imports from China and concessionary regime resulted in massive misuse of the facility through misdeclaration and under-invoicing, the official said.

The Tax Reform Commission (TRC) in its report submitted to the finance minister two years ago pointed out that goods imported from China worth $3 billion were under-invoiced or mis-declared.

The member said the exchange of electronic data of trade between the two countries would help the Pakistani Customs obtain the actual Chinese factory value and declared value by importers.

Khokhar said that officials of Pakistan Customs had visited China recently and studied the goods manufacturing and different values of export prices. Pakistan Customs is also planning to create linkages with other trading partners, especially with those where Pakistan had signed free trade agreements, he said, adding that the next electronic data exchange programme would soon be negotiated with Malaysia.