BOC allows Subic locators to use electronic export system

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) has allowed locators of the Subic Bay free port to use the agency’s automated export documentation system (AEDS) when they ship out their goods in the Clark Field Airport in Pampanga and the bigger airports in Manila.

Starting yesterday, the BOC now allows all shipments from the Subic Special Economic Zone to use the said electronic system, which can cut the processing time to just five minutes. Previously, the processing could take at least an hour since the BOC is using the old system of handling documents only for Subic locators.

A joint memorandum order has already been signed between Customs Commissioner Napoleon L. Morales and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority for the immediate implementation of the AEDS for Subic locators.

“This reduce in cost does not represent export duty or any government fees. This represents reduce cost on the delay of goods,” Morales said in a press briefing.

With the new system, the BOC will now accept electronic documents, such as export declaration, permits, licenses, among others, instead of hard copies.

“No further preshipment processing of the ED [export declaration] shall be required by the DMIA [Diosdado Macapagal International Airport] and Naia [Ninoy Aquino International Airport] Customs, except when there is strong derogatory information of change of contents of the shipment while in transit,” one of the provisions of the order states.

Other Subic locators have been hit hard when the Federal Express hub in Subic Bay pulled out early last year.

The SBMA has its own international airport, but was not operational after the pullout of FedEx. The government is still looking for a company that will use the facility.

AEDS has been implemented by the BOC to the country’s major airports, including those in Cebu and Mactan, since 2002, but it was limited to the locators of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, an agency that manages more than 100 economic zones all over the country.

As a result, Subic exporters have to undergo the manual system of document processing when they ship out their goods through DMIA or through Naia in Manila.

United Parcel Service-Delbros Transport Inc. country manager Maurice K. Gohoc earlier asked the BOC to also allow Subic locators to use AEDS.

“In view of this, we have been burdened with having to use the manual export-documentation systems for the exports of Subic Special Economic and Free Port Zone locators for loading unto UPS flights out of DMIA,” Gohoc said in his letter to the BOC.

On-time delivery is vital to the competitiveness electronics exports, he said.

UPS also pulled out its hub in Clark and transferred it to China, but unlike FedEx, it still does business with some of the locators in Subic and in Clark. With Jovic Yee Written by VG Cabuag / Reporter businessmirror.com.ph