Customs declaration form Philippines
Our reporter Jason has been visiting the Philippines to investigate further in the big debate about customs declaration.
Since 4 weeks ago, a minor scandal has arisen in the Philippines when it has emerged how easy it is to import and export dangerous goods and goods. More investigations have been carried out and have shown that the controls are limited and often even non-existent. This has proven to be a direct danger to wildlife and people living in the Philippines.
The idea behind the new forms that the customs authority in the Philippines has developed is to curb corruption and increase control over which goods enter the country and which goods leave the country. The new form has been appreciated by many, but at the same time many companies say that handling is more difficult and that it will affect their sales negatively.
Jason Lowtower has visited Meralco which is the largest company in the Philippines. He has interviewed their CEO: Lupia Loyala
Jason: "What risks do you see with the new customs rules and the new forms that have to be filled out and submitted to the authorities before you can start importing and exporting?"
Lupia Loyala: "The Philippines is a poor country and unfortunately for a long time we have been hit by natural disasters and other inconveniences that negatively affected our economy. Introducing tougher regulations will not benefit anyone and it will affect our competitiveness vis-à-vis the world. Of course, there are advantages to the new customs rules. But we claim that this will not solve the problems that exist today. You have to take new steps and come up with better proposals."
Customs regulations
We tried to get a meeting with the BOC who are responsible for all customs in the Philippines. But no one wanted to answer our questions or respond to the criticism that has been put forward by companies and other authorities.
We at TSN tested ourselves to fill in one of the new forms to carry out imports into the country. With the help of a specialist from Meralco, we went through the best way to fill out such a form. After 2 hours, we could see that it is not only complex and time-consuming. Unfortunately, there are also not many relevant questions to be answered.
Can they really be this way? We chose to contact one of Sweden's best customs agents to clear up questions about how to actually complete these forms. Richard Coster at Tullify helped us sort out the issues: “Ideally, you want all forms to have the same clear interface. This makes it easy as a company to work with customs and customs handling.”
Having said that, we leave the Philippines and choose to return in the future to see if their development in customs and customs handling has improved.
