Friday, August 12, 2016

Govt for custom reform: FM Mahara

Lalitpur, Aug 11: Finance Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara Thursday directed the employee at the Department of Customs to work with high morale and integrity in order to achieve the target set by the government.
The government has given the revenue target of Rs. 246 billion to the Customs.
Inaugurating a two-day seminar on Customs Management here, he said, “If there are any challenges to the smooth operation of the customs, they will be addressed but we need to make the customs more effective.”
FM Mahara urged the participants to find the way to customs reform and formulate future plans.
Speaking on a different note, he said that the first priority of the government was to implement the constitution and federalism.
Secretary of revenue at the Ministry of Finance Rajan Khanal said that the customs were the major source of revenue collection.
“Trade facilitation should be the priority at the customs. The government is implementing digital technology to make the customs operations more efficient and effective,” he said.
 Director general of the Department, Shishir Kumar Dhungana expressed his commitment to meet the customs revenue target.
He informed that the single window for trade facilitation was under tendering process and would be implement by 2018.
“Last year we installed IP camera at 13 customs offices which has enabled us to monitor the activities there from the central office of the Department and Ministry of Finance. We have given priority to the development of infrastructure related to the customs and trade facilitation,” he said.
Dhungana said that the Department was expediting the digitization process of customs offices.
It had started the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) as piloting from Mechi Customs Offices in the last fiscal year, and it will be expanded to 10 customs offices this year.
According to Dhungana, the seminar would discuss on eight thematic areas related to the customs and diagnose the challenges as well as find solutions to them.


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