FFFAI, CSLA work for seamless movement

The Executive Committees of Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Association In India (FFFAI) and Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA) in India recently had a meeting on video conference to discuss the trade facilitation measures to be implemented to adopt best practices in achieving the result for reducing dwell time and transaction cost on logistics.

FFFAI and CSLA both were of the opinion that industry should look for more of digitisation of documentation and process to avoid physical presence and hard copy exchanges. Since its customs endeavour to work toward digital customs all related stakeholders should also adopt changes and upgrade technology to digitise process related to exim trade.

Customs EDI system and ICEGATE are well integrated systems with PORTS/ CFS’s, however there is a need to eliminate the manual process like handing over of physical LEO print Shipping Bill copies to surveyors/shipping lines which can be replaced with online system DATA transfer integration. It was agreed upon to make a representation to CBIC board for acceptance of new practices in view of implementation of EDI Systems. Also, customs would review the procedure in view of EDI implementation to do away with printout and hard copy submission to customs as the Export General Manifest are done online.