As part of ‘Ease of Doing Business’ initiative, Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) took up implementation of Single Window Project early last year. The project aims to facilitate EXIM trade and enable hassle-free and smooth operations of international trade transactions across borders. The project would allow importers and exporters the facility to lodge their clearance documents online at a single point only. The Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT), would reduce interface with governmental agencies, dwell time and the cost of doing business. SWIFT is a natural step for helping achieve the objectives of digital India initiative.
Rajendra Kumar Meena, Joint Commissioner, Single Window Project, Central Board of Excise & Customs, Ministry of Finance speaks to Rashmi Pradhan on how implementation of Single Window Project will help to boost EXIM trade
What was the objective behind setting up Single Window Project?
With exponential growth in cross border trade and the developments in Information Communication Technology (ICT), trade expects faster and transparent service delivery at the time of import/export that provides an edge to its competitiveness in a globalised world. Businesses involved in international trade have to prepare and submit large amount of information to governmental agencies to comply with import, export and transshipment related regulatory requirements. This information had to be submitted to several different agencies, which have their own specific automated or manual systems to process the data. The system of filing regulatory information at multiple points was a tedious exercise for trade and affected the effectiveness of public service delivery for EXIM cargo.
A solution to this problem is to harmonise the regulatory compliance system through single window wherein regulatory information requirement needs to be submitted only at a single point to enhance the availability and flow of information among government agencies and trade, as a result of better harmonisation and sharing of the data. This can reduce costs both for government and trade.
In this context CBEC has taken up the Single Window Project for implementation as part of promoting ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and for facilitating trade across borders in India. The project is now known as SWIFT (Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade) and is operational for facilitating imports throughout India with effect from April 1, 2016.
Please elaborate on how the entire process works?
This story is from the January/February 2017 edition of Indian Transport & Logistics News.
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This story is from the January/February 2017 edition of Indian Transport & Logistics News.
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