In this connection, the US customs convened meetings with their Pakistani counterparts on an invitation of the Central Board of Revenue (CBR). A two-member delegation of the US customs recently met Pakistani customs officials to work out strategy to facilitate Pakistani exporters.
Both the sides agreed to have liaison on the issues of border protection programme and minimum scanning of Pakistani containers dispatched for the US.
They also agreed on the exchange of information data pertaining to customs between both the countries, the officials said.
The minimum scanning of export consignments to the United States will speed up clearance of containers for the destination ports. The scanning of Pakistani consignments for the US is presently carried out in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and other countries, which is not only time consuming, but exporters also have to give additional cost for the scanning process.
The Pakistani ports are operating as feeder ports and actual scanning is done in these countries for onward movement to the US. Once the US agrees to accept scanning process at Pakistani ports, it would reduce the cost of examination/transportation giving extraordinary benefit to the trade and industry. In such case, the exporters could transfer the images to the destination port.