Workshop on Clear Pune

PCHAA recently hosted a workshop on ‘Clear in Pune’ and ‘WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement’ initiatives.

TFA contains commitments on harmonised documentation, procedure for the movement of goods across international borders

Commenting on the objective of organising the workshop, Vinod Sharma, President, Pune Customs House Agents’ Association (PCHAA) and Honorary Treasurer, FFFAI, said, “As per our theme ‘Clear in Pune’ we are encouraging all the EXIM trade to clear their goods from Pune ICDs. Also, as an association we wanted to keep our members updated on the forthcoming changes, thanks to WTO TFA initiatives and their impact on the trade. IT preparedness has also been discussed in this regard.”

Santosh Vatsa, Joint Commissioner of Customs, Pune, highlighted the facilities available in Pune ICDs. He maintained that here the present turnaround time for clearance of import container is 24 hours and it was a good achievement for Pune EXIM Trade. “We will release drawback within 15 days from the date of exports,” he announced. Vatsa invited suggestions from the trade to enhance EXIM trade and to clear their goods from Pune ICDs. Samir J Shah, Chairman, FFFAI, discussed various aspects of the TFA between India and WTO. He underlined the prime objectives of TFA — uniformity and facilitation across the global market. “There is no correlation between WTO TFA and FTA (Free Trade Agreement that happens between two countries). While the rule based multimodal activity, i.e., TFA is for facilitation of global trade, FTA is concerned about revenue aspect related to bilateral trade between any two countries. TFA contains commitments about a host of measures on simpler and harmonised documentation and procedure for the movement of goods across international borders,” he clarified.

Shah also highlighted the rapidly emerging concepts like RMS, Self-Assessment, DPD, Pre-Arrival Clearance, etc. Commenting on the benefits of TFA including entry to new markets and cost reduction of 10/13-15 per cent for developed/developing countries, Shah maintained that it would strengthen ease and speed of doing business.