Customs for customer-friendly period

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Sri Lanka Customs has declared a customer friendly period from August 01 to September 30 to identify problems and issues including shipping with the SL Customs, its sources said.

The shipping sector is also having many constraints and problems and Customs authorities expect to address those in harness with shipping community, the sources also said.

This period was declared at the request of the Ministry of Finance. The Sri Lanka Customs plays a key role in import and export sector. Therefore this period is important for the public and for the import and export stakeholders including trading community to discuss issues, complaints and suggestions on the entity, Director General of Sri Lanka Customs Sarath Jayathilaka said.

He said that regarding the decision they have a good response from various stakeholders and public. Customs consider that this opportunity is vitally important to realise what the public needs.

Jayathilaka said that they have opened a 24-hour special information unit to facilitate the public to respond to their issues. Annually Sri Lanka Customs handles more than 300,000 Custom declarations.

They want to focus and highlight the important role played by the Sri Lanka Customs not only in the collection of revenue for the State but more importantly in facilitating the trade in the country. This would enable Sri Lanka Custom’s to focus and identify its customers to work out a process for rationalisation and improvement method.

The Chairman of the Association of Clearing and Forwarding Agents, M Niyas said that this move would rationalize the Custom Cargo examination within a short time and to ease the services rendered by the Customs. Niyas also said that this type of customer friendly programme would enable to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Sri Lanka Customs and also build entity’s image.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce - Import Section sources said that they appreciate implementing a programme of this nature and also said that many long-standing problems and constraints could be sorted out confronting the business community.