The Government on Monday notified the Streamlining of Unit Quantity Codes (UQCs) in Director General of Foreign Trade’s (DGFT) EDI system & Customs’ ICEGATE.
The DGFT has noted that use of Non- standard and Non-convertible UQCs lead to poor quality of data capture and related consequences.
The government has issued the notice with the objective of standardization in the data collection for the purpose of clean data reporting and analysis.
The DGFT said that the usage of harmonized standard UQC at the time of filing of Shipping Bills and Bills of Entry in ICEGATE is being mandated through various public notices issued by customs formations during the month of August 2020.
However, the Public Notice No. 101 dated August 18, 2020 issued by JNCH Mumbai customs has resulted in difficulties for some members of the trade and Industry in complying with the standard UQCs in their old Advance and EPCG authorizations which have been issued with quantity units that do not match with the standard UQCs being adopted or available now.
In order to address this issue, the government has elaborated on the various instructions.
Firstly, no new authorizations mentioning Non-standard units such as BoU, packs, Boxes cartons and bottles etc would be issued by RAs. For this necessary changes are being carried out in the DGFT EDI system also.
Secondly, in order to ensure that exports do not suffer in the meanwhile, for the authorizations already issued and carrying any Non-standard units such as BoU, packs, Boxes cartons and bottles etc, Customs have been requested to allow exports against such authorizations till 30.10.2020 by accepting exporter’s shipping bills in the UQCs provided in ICEGATE. After November 1, 2020, exports/imports without standard UQCs will not be permitted.
Lastly, in the meanwhile, such authorization holders are requested to approach concerned RA and get the non-standard units indicated in their authorizations in the import and export quantities, converted to standard quantity units. In case RAs face any difficulty in carrying out these amendments, they will get in touch with the concerned Norms Committee (NC) in Hqrs.
“Difficulty in implementation of these instructions, if any, may be brought to the notice of this directorate at policy4-dgft@gov.in immediately,” the DGFT while addressing Members of Trade, Export Promotion Councils and all RAs said.
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