Finance Ministry Plans to Expand Online Cargo Clearance System

An industrial port terminal on the banks of Yangon's Hlaing river
Photo Credit : Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters 

           Plans are underway to expand the My­anmar Automatic Cargo Clearance System, a computerised network aimed at speeding up trade at ports and bor­ders, a minister has said. The expansion will start in 2018 and cover trade posts at Myanmar’s land borders, said U Kyaw Win, the Minister of Plan­ning Finance.
         It follows the success of the system at shipping ports and the interna­tional airport in Yangon region, he added. The government has been trialling the system at 10 locations in Yangon including ports along the Yangon River and com­modity checking gates at the Yangon International airport.
        The system was devel­oped with technical and financial assistance worth $40 million from the Jap­anese government’s in­ternational development arm, the Japan Interna­tional Cooperation Agen­cy (JICA). It automati­cally records information on imports and exports using specialist computer software.
        Technicians are planning to add updates to enable the system to be able to recognise which customs channel, red, yellow or green, the goods are pass­ing through. It will be able to automatically calculate the taxes and print the re­lease orders for goods in the green channel.
        There are plans to extend the system to the Muse trading gate in Shan state, at the border with China, and the Tatchileik crossing at the Thai border. Officials say MACCS minimises illegal trade and prevents backlogs of shipping containers.
        Under the NLD govern­ment more than K10.9 bil­lion worth of contraband has been seized across the country, including K5.26 billion from regions and states outside of Yangon.
Source: MyanmarBusinessToday