Saudi Customs and the Saudi Ports Authority are considering raising fines imposed on importers and their agents for tardiness in the clearance and discharge of shipments. Saleh Al-Khilaiwi, Director General of Saudi Customs, said the move will address the 1.6 million tons of mostly iron goods, and some 15,000 cars parked in Port areas. The number of shipping containers at the Port has also risen to over 21,000, Al-Khilaiwi added, noting that Customs is studying reducing the discharge period caused by what he called, “importers' misuse of the system”. Importers and their agents failing to follow goods clearance procedures during the Eid holiday have increased pressure on the Port because of the rise in imports, he said. “All sections and Customs groups were assigned to work during the holiday to clear shipments, but transactions to put shipments into clearance were few.” Al-Khilaiwi expected this to lead to an increase in demand for Port and Custom services when work officially restarts, an increase exceeding normal daily rates and leading to delays in discharging goods due to the need to balance goods arriving and the large quantities of goods being discharged. Pressure back on importers Al-Khilaiwi expects a shortening of the discharge period to encourage importers to speed up shipments through clearance upon arrival, saying that some importers mistook the discharge period as a “storage period” rather than the period of procedures during which clearance transactions must be followed and completed. He said importers must prepare required documents before shipments arrive, especially when Customs is to facilitate discharge transactions for different kinds of shipment such as new cars, equipment, piping, and iron before they arrive to port. Al-Khilaiwi highlighted the use of electronic shipment discharge which facilitates the exchange of information with importers and marine agents, the collection of customs duties, and the radio inspection of containers, which is used to discharge about 70 percent of the total number of arriving containers. Phantom documents A further factor contributing to the backlog of goods at the port was what clearance employees and some businessmen call it “phantom documents”. During the Eid holiday, companies unloading containers provided Customs with reports indicating that containers had been unloaded and were ready to be submitted to port procedures, something which Customs officials discovered was not true upon examining containers. Officials said it had occurred five times and led directly to an increased accumulation of shipments, prompting a formal complaint to the authorities. Director of Jeddah Islamic Port Sahir Tahlawi had been informed of the issue, sources said. Customs Clearance employees questioned those who would blame them for the backlog and point to the fact that several government sectors and banks were not working, among them marine agents, who Customs employees say are fundamental to the functioning of the port, providing as they do delivery authorization. Further to that, banks were also closed, making the acquisition of funds for transactions impossible. Such transactions need a liquidity of more than SR2 million. Many other governmental bodies concerned with discharging procedures, such as the Ministries of Commerce and Interior, and the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment Protection were also not working during Eid. – Okaz __
