Essential edible items under APTTA: FBR agrees to exempt goods from insurance guarantee

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has principally agreed to exempt Afghan transit trade consignments of essential edible items including wheat, sugar and pulses from submission of insurance guarantee by the Afghan importers under the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA).
Sources told Business Recorder here on Sunday that the second extension of 30 days granted by the Board for waiver in submission of insurance guarantee for release of transit goods was expired on October 6, 2011. The representatives of Afghan Consulate General and Afghan traders stressed upon the need to devise longer term policy on the issue instead of piecemeal extensions. The FBR and the Afghan side agreed that as short term measure goods declarations filed till October 15, 2011 have been exempted from the requirements of insurance guarantee.
For the longer term, Collector of Customs Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Appraisement has been given assignments to propose measures to streamline the issue by looking into the possibility of exempting edible items of essential nature such as wheat, sugar, pulses etc from the insurance guarantee requirements altogether and extending the ''''PD account'''' facility for large Afghan importers to serve a revolving guarantee, instead of providing IG for each individual consignment. The facility of exemption from submission of insurance guarantee during clearance of Afghan transit trade consignments of essential edible items including wheat, sugar and pulses and other similar kind of items would ensure timely availability of these basic commodities in Afghanistan.
It has also been noted that insurance companies were arbitrarily demanding premium of up to Rs 800,000 for issuance of insurance guarantee for sensitive items. It was also decided that the Collector of Customs Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Appraisement shall issue a list of items that may be classified as sensitive and the insurance companies shall charge not more than one percent of the duties and taxes involved therein as premium and 0.7 percent on other non-sensitive items.
Sources said that at present movement of transit cargo is being allowed only in original/shipper''''s containers by the clearance Collectorates, which is greatly increasing the cost of the business for the Afghan importers. The representatives of Afghan Consulate General and Afghan traders requested that the condition may not be applied on essential food items whose import into Pakistan even otherwise is duty free. The Transit Trade Rules 2011 allow movement of transit cargo in loose condition in sealable trucks and for food items, this option may be preferred. Customs authorities of both the sides have agreed to allow loose delivery of essential food items in sealable trucks in principal and directed the Collector of Customs MCC Appraisement to submit detailed recommendations to Board for across the board implementation of the instructions.