Attention of Importers/Customs Brokers is invited to recent Board Circular No. 010/2016-Customs dated 15.03.2016 and consequent upon JNCH issued Public Notice No. 53/2016 dated 23/03/2016 - Customs - 59/2016

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS (NHAVA SHEVA-I) EDI (CENTRALISED) SECTION, 2ND FLOOR, B-WING, JAWAHARLAL NEHRU CUSTOM HOUSE, NHAVA SHEVA, URAN, RAIGAD, MAHARASHTRA 400707 F. No. S/12-Gen-82/15-16, AM(X) JNCH Part I Date : 04.04.2016 FACILITY NOTICE NO. 59/2016 Attention of Importers/Customs Brokers is invited to recent Board Circular No. 010/2016-Customs dated 15.03.2016 and consequent upon JNCH issued Public Notice No. 53/2016 dated 23/03/2016. For further clarity on the matter, an advisory in the form of Frequently Asked Questions has been received from DG(Systems), New Delhi. The same is reproduced below for information and guidance of trade/exporters - 1.Is it mandatory to declare AD Code in BE Declaration? Yes, it is mandatory to declare AD CODE of the branch responsible for outward remittance in BE Main Table. 2. What is AD Code ? AD Code (Authorised Dealer Code) is a unique seven digit code assigned by the Reserve Bank of India to every Authorised branch of banks dealing with foreign exchange. 3. Do I need to register my AD Code prior to BE declaration, in the same way as I am required to do in exports? There is no need for prior registration unlike in Exports. It is enough that a valid AD Code is declared at the time of BE Filing. 4. What should I declare in the field pertaining to UCR Reference No. and UCR Code? The details regarding UCR shall be notified shortly. For the present, these fields may be left blank. 5. What does payment method code refer to? Payment Method Code field is added to indicate how payment would be made. This is in the context of budgetary changes regarding payment of duty which will be introduced soon. However, at present, it would be a mandatory field having default value as T indicating transaction-wise payment. 6. What does Terms place refer to? As per INCOTERMS, Terms of Invoice is always associated to a named place. The same is being captured here. The named place as per Invoice terms should be declared here in free text. 7. What does Third party Name and address refer to? RBI Circular 70/2013 dt. 8.11.2013 provides for making payments to a third party provided that the same is mentioned in the Bill of Entry. The same is provided for in invoice details. 8. Why is Third party Country field only 2 characters in length? The above RBI circular provides that the third party payment should be made only to FATF compliant country. To monitor the same, the Address field is provided to capture the Country code to verify compliance to the above guidelines. 9. What do I declare in the fields related to AEO ? The data values to be declared in this field would be notified later. Presently, may be provided blank in the message file. 10. Is it mandatory to fill position 87 related to whether buyer and seller are related? ? Yes. It is a mandatory field to declare Y or N based on relationship between buyer and seller. 11. What is the change in Enduse of the item data field ? Earlier, this data field was a mandatory free text field. It is now converted into a coded field. It would only accept codes to be entered in Enduse. The list of codes are already published in the SW Directories. Only the Code needs to be entered. The text should not be entered alongwith the code. 12. Why is Enduse field changed from free text to Coded values ? When free text was provided, most importers were not declaring it in a form which can be used for any qualitative decision making. Most PGAs require codified end-use or purpose of import. End use having gained more importance with integration of PGAs, it is made as coded field, to make it useful for taking qualitative decision on facilitating PGA reference. Only list of values can be populated in the data field. 13. What is the significance of the other flags which are added in the RSP Applicability column ? A few more flags (i.e. Q,T,D) are also added in the RSP applicability column to enable importers to declare the reason for non applicability of the RSP based CVD.This would enable space for self declaration and may reduce forwarding to assessment for verification of RSP declaration. 14. What should I declare in position 81 of items table with field name as customs notn exempting CVD flag ? Flag C would be accepted here. 15. What is the significance of flag C in the above referred field (Position 81 of items table) ? As per clarification provided in Board Circular No.41/2013 dt. 21.10.2013, an importer has the option to avail BCD and CVD benefits through two different customs notifications and also in partial manner. Earlier CVD notification field (position 27) was always assumed to be Central Excise Notfn. Thus to avail CVD benefit using Customs Notfn, Flag C is to be declared to differentiate that Notification No. declared in position 27 refers to a Customs Notification and not Excise one. This will enable importers to claim 2 exemption notifications on the System, instead of resorting to a manual clearance. 16. What is the difference between Manufacturer Country, Source Country Transit Country ? The country could be the same in most of the cases, but not in all cases. Manufacturing country refers to the country where the product is manufactured. Source country is the one where the essential good is sourced. Transit country is one where the goods have transited before reaching India. Source country and Transit country are defined in the context of PGA requirement. 17. What if the goods have not transited any other country after manufacture? Manufacturing country may be declared as Transit country. 18. What is the difference between the manufacturer country and Country of Origin ? Country of origin is determined more by rules of origin defined in Trade Agreements. The Country of origin may be the source country, if the value addition rules are not met with. Hence, for PGA requirements to trace manufacturer, the manufacturer country may be different from Country of origin. 19. What should I declare in Manufacturer type and Manufacturer code ? Some PGAs are in the process of building a database of manufacturers, to whom they will assign codes. This is being done for risk management, control and testing purposes. Its utility would be notified later. It may be provided blank as of now. 20. What is preceding level in HSS? It is a flag to indicate the transaction hierarchy of multiple transactions involved in HSS. If there is only one HSS involved, the Preceding Level would be 0. 21. How to enter the details in HSS tables, if there are two transactions involved in the High sea sales. The details of the person who has sold the same to the present importer is to be provided with preceding level as 0. The details of original importer who has sold the same to the person referred above is to be given with preceding level as 1. Similarly, if there are three transactions involved in HSS, those many details would be there, with as many preceding levels. 22. What do I fill up in the additional tables provided in the SBEDUTY table? Few additional columns have been added here to make it a generic table for claiming exemption/levy for any kind of new taxation being introduced. Its utility would be notified later. Presently its additional columns may be provided blank. 23. What does flag E in Commercial Tax Type column signify? Flag E indicates the Central Excise Regn No. to be indicated in Commercial Tax Regn No (Position 9). As you are aware, Customs (Imported Goods at Concessional rate of Duty for manufacture of excisable goods) Rules, 2016 mandates declaration of Central Excise Regn no. during BE filing as mandatory. 24. Kindly explain the fields INFO_TYPE, INFO_QUALIFIER, INFO_CODE, INFO_MSR briefly? The Info_Typerefers to the broad category of the Information to be provided for PGA and other requirements. It could be Identification, Product Name, Characteristics or Category. It is coded as IDT, PNM, CHR, CTG respectively. The Info_qualifier refers to the information which is sought under each broad category. The information could be Breed, Scientific name or Storage Temperature. Each information is coded into qualifier. For E.g. qualifier for above information are BRD, SCI, STT respectively. The value or answer for the above information sought in the form of qualifier is to be provided either as Pre defined codes, as free text or as unit measure. If the same is a code, it is to be provided in INFO_CODE column; if the same is text - in INFO_TEXT; its measure in INFO_MSR. The information sought is presently mutually exclusive. The value would be in only one of the three ways, not in more than one fields. The qualifier and its description is provided in the SW directories published in ICEGATE website. The Agency wise guidelines are also provided to help cross mapping of existing forms with the new fields. Only Codes needs to be filled with INFO_TYPE, INFO_QUALIFIER and INFO_CODE. Text should not be entered. 25. Do we enter total shelf life (in days) or residual shelf life(in days) and why is residual shelf life(in %) given in the explanation? Where is it to be entered? Field 14 is best before date and is to be given as available in the product. The shelf life, residual life would be internally calculated. Those columns are not available in the final declaration format. 26. What is Control? Control is the term used for any inspection, checking, examination, testing, scanning, screening or verification by regulatory authorities. This table is used to record the date, place, and result of control of goods. 27. Where are Control Code and Control Result Code published ? The Control Code and control Result codes are in the same directory ctrl_cd. The codes with flag C are control codes and one with Flag R are Control result codes. 28. For Field 10 Control location what is to be entered? In case of documents, place of issue and in case of examination, inspection etc, place of such event. 29. Will the new tables have multiple entries? Yes, new tables can have multiple entries against each item. 30. What will appear in Declaration type, declaration number, statement type and Statement Code ? The Declaration type and Declaration number may be left blank. The Statement type may be UTG, DEC or REM (i.e. Undertaking, Declaration or Remark). The statement code needs to be given only for UTG or DEC. Only Code needs to be provided. Statement Text needs to be provided only in the context of REM, which is free text. For further, clarity on the matter related to errors that commonly occur at the time of filing Bills of Entry and their resolution is also mentioned below: ERRORS AND THEIR RESOLUTION Sl. No. Error Code Error Description Resolution 1 394 Invalid End-use Code Use End use code as provided in the Directory. Free Text is not allowed. It would be 6 character alphanumeric code. 2 144 Invalid AD Code 7 digit AD Code must be quoted. May enquire about validity of such AD Code to ICEGATE helpdesk. 3 476, 475 Item Details are not available in Statement table Check that item quoted areavailable in Statement Table. Apart from that, 0 is allowed to indicate higher level. 4 327 RSP Details Missing The RSP Flag is Y, while no data is in RSP table. Kindly sync the details and resubmit again. 5 999 Check Data/Duty Related parameters etc. Kindly resubmit again. The BE may get successfully integrated. 6 638 IGM Not Submitted The Details submitted may be verified through IGM Enquiry. 7 626 IGM Dt. Wrong The Details submitted may be verified through IGM Enquiry. 8 358, 359, 360 Invalid Manufacturing Country Code, Source country, transit country, code Kindly ensure that the proper country codes are used in those columns. 9 481 Mandatory Condition not provided The issue has been resolved. May resubmit again. Any difficulties faced in this regard, may be communicated to Local EDI, Customs formation or ICEGATE Helpdesk (180030101000 or [email protected]). --Sd-- (D. K. SRINIVAS) Commissioner of Customs, NS-I, JNCH, Nhava Sheva