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Wednesday, 26 May 2021

Customs Act regs are up for discussion again

The business community has one week to give feedback on the latest version of the Customs Act’s executive regulations (pdf), after the Finance Ministry incorporated suggested amendments and requests from the latest round of public consultations last month, Al Masry Al Youm reports. Under the proposed regulations, importers would be allowed to pay customs in chunks over six-12 months, depending on how established their business is. The regs would also allow goods to move out of Egypt without submitting waybills on the spot.

What's changed? The new draft cuts inspection fees for larger containers to EGP 800 from EGP 1k for exports, and to EGP 200 from EGP 400 for imports. Otherwise, the regulations don't appear to have undergone significant reworking since they were initially issued in March. The latest draft shows the majority of the amendments applied to the language and technical terms used in the regulations, in addition to updating the terms of the regulations to account for the digitization of customs processes.

This isn’t their first rodeo: The Customs Act has been met with pushback from exporters, shipping agencies, and customs brokers since it came into effect in November. The Finance Ministry eventually capitulated to some of their grievances, including on ins. requirements.

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