WITH the purpose of preventing movement of illicit funds through wrong invoicing of exports, India, the US, Belgium and South Africa have pitched for globally networked Customs departments
The idea came about due to growing awareness that global trade mispricing is now the single biggest means of moving unaccounted money across national borders.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman, Mr S. Dutt Majumdar, feels that a globally-networked Customs could help both in trade facilitation and enforcement.
According to a Finance Ministry official, such a system could help prevent loss of revenue to countries and check money laundering by expeditious interchange of crucial data. "A detailed policy paper is expected to be taken up at a crucial meeting of the World Customs Organisation in June", he said.
According to a report by Global Financial Integrity, trade mispricing accounted for an average 54.7 per cent of cumulative illicit flows from developing countries between 2000 and 2008.
"Developing country treasuries lose close to $100 billion each year due to trade mispricing", the report claimed.
The global network of Customs authorities will clear the way for exchange of information on valuation of goods, rules of origin and intellectual property rights.
For example, if authorities come across an importer who has declared value of goods lower than the price in the source country, they can promptly initiate action to prevent revenue loss or probe into the reasons for such declaration.
Experts believe that such a system could help create a risk-based model and facilitate trade.
Source : Exim News Service - NEW DELHI, April 19