The process of customs clearance for the purpose of export and import as well as submitting the required certificates for doing trade will be done online from now on as instructed by a presidential decree, IRNA reported.
The implementation of an integrated customs system, which has recently been put in place, has reduced the required time for conducting customs’ procedures for imports from 26 days to only three days, said the managing director of Iran’s Customs Administration on Tuesday.
“This helps Iranian importers save 280 billion rials in import costs,” said Masoud Karbasian. “This has resulted in the facilitation of trade.”
The system has increased the income of the Customs Administration by 130 percent, according to the official.
The integrated customs system has been prepared in cooperation with the Office of the Campaign against Smuggling Goods and Foreign Currency.
According to Karbasian, merchants do not need to refer to the related organization in person any more for doing the bureaucratic procedures for imports and exports. Instead, he said, they can use the online service to fill in the bill of entry electronically.
The official also said that the required time for issuing export certificates has been reduced from seven to one day.
“Reducing waiting times for export and import procedures has resulted in the reduction of smuggling of goods,” said the official.
Also, the organization is planning to issue export certificates online, to avoid physical presence.
The results of reduced waiting times have specifically shown themselves in the cell phone market, whose trade, according to the official, has been increased via official borders unlike the past when they were mostly smuggled into the country.
The integrated customs system that has been recently developed in Iran is evaluated by experts to be an instrument that facilitates connecting the country to the global customs system.
Karbasian said that the organization is looking forward to create a unified window – an online mechanism – for conducting transboundary trade. The global rank of Iran in the field of customs has improved from 126 to 63 in the past year, which indicates the influence of applying new electronic technologies, said Karbasian.
