Shippers' Council forum to enhance service

The Shippers' Academy Colombo (SAC) with the Sri Lanka Shippers' Council (SLSC) has organised a logistics forum on Thursday from 9 am to 12 noon at the Sri Lanka Foundation where two presentations by officials of the Customs and the Export Facilitation Centre will be made to educate the export and the service community. They will outline the process and discuss operational issues with members of the trade to further improve the service.

In the last quarter of 2014, the Sri Lanka Customs Department initiated a new trade facilitation tool by providing Sri Lanka's first Export Trade Facilitation Centre (EFC) at the port access road to enhance its automation process by reducing operational activities of exporters.

Less paper, less work and lower cost under the e-Customs initiatives, the one-stop Export Facilitation Centre was set up so that the exporter does not need to visit Customs Department unless there are special licensed products to process through the Customs export declaration.

The department has introduced electronic warranting, e-Cargo Dispatch Note, e-payment, and e-terminal information. This has reduced the number of copies from 18 to one or two.

The EFC further reduces documents, number of movements of wharf representatives and Customs officers, panel examinations, provides faster export clearance, boat note passing, operations and charges.

BOI companies too can now pass the final port clearance at this location and avoid entering the SLPA to do the same operations.

The new processes have reduced time, resources and taken away hidden costs, which many from the trade were not willing to talk about as they knew they were doing the wrong thing for many years by using speed money as a tool, which costs export companies dearly as petty cash.