Reluctant to deal with the customs authority? Think again. Sherine Nasr finds out that foreign trade's worst enemy is now transforming itself into its best friend There were times in Egypt when taking the risk of smuggling goods seemed to many people a more plausible idea than going through the official customs system. During the past five years, however, the image of the Egyptian Customs Authority and its officials as obsolete and rigid has, slowly but surely, been changing. Improvements have included all elements of the customs activities: the laws, the facilities, but above all, the human element which is the basis of a reliable and quality service. These changes were officially recognised when this week seven Egyptian customs ports received the ISO 9001 Certificate, the highest global quality assurance in terms of efficiency. "Receiving the global certificate of quality was the target of the financial policy in Egypt in five years now," said Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali, during a press conference held on Sunday. Ghali added that if the customs department gets the ISO 9001-2008, it will be the first department in the Middle East to be internationally accredited. According to Galal Abul-Fotouh, advisor to the minister of finance for customs, the accreditation authority for ISO 9001 visited the logistics centres at the designated ports. It also collected information from clients about the procedures and time required to get a customs clearance. "We did not appoint a consulting bureau to help us acquire the accreditation. The process costs nothing and the ports were accredited thanks to the world-class procedures applied in each," said Abul-Fotouh. A few months earlier, similar improvements related to customs clearance in Egyptian ports were among the main criteria that helped Egypt advance 11 places in the global rankings to reach the 114th rank on the ease of doing business. "The port of Alexandria continued to upgrade its facilities and speed customs clearance, reducing the time needed to get an export consignment through by one day and the time to import by three," underlined the World Bank's Doing Business Report of 2009. One basic step towards upgrading the customs services in Egypt was for the government to finally issue executive regulations for the customs law that was enacted since 1966. "It is ridiculous why executive regulations should take half a century to be formulated," said Ahmed Saudi, head of the Egyptian customs authority. "The absence of these regulations was manifest in lack of transparency, duplication, inconsistency and contradiction of ministerial decisions. The outcome was disastrous for importers and exporters alike," said Saudi, who added that the picture was worsened by an innate disposition on part of the authority to collect more money. "As a result, big investments fled the country while smuggling was widespread," he said. Nevertheless, the issuing of executive regulations, in addition to the re-structuring of the authority has put things in the right perspective. "The client is now the boss," said Saudi who added that upgrading the customs sector in Egypt is done according to specific moves; the authority has been re-structured to enable it to become decentralised. Consequently, general directors have been delegated very wide authorities in order to take instant and crucial decisions without referring to the minister. Moreover, a quality centre affiliated to the Central Department for Customs Reform and Development has been established for the first time to set out standardised performance criteria that go in line with international norms. "These tools and others are being implemented to fight corruption and to guarantee flexibility and transparency," said Saudi who added that the authority is keen on further reducing clearance time of exports and imports to hours rather than days to conform to international standards. It is worth noting that the Egyptian Customs Authority is member of the World's Customs Organisation (WCO), an intergovernmental body, headquartered in Brussels, whose task is to work in areas related to commodity classification, rules of origin, collection of customs revenues, to mention some. "Regulations imposed by WCO are immediately implemented in Egypt which helped minimise instances of discrepancies between the commercial community, local and international, and the authority," said Saudi. Notably, a harmonised customs tariff was issued in 2007 and is now effective in all Egyptian ports which helped eliminate discrepancies. To streamline transit trade in Egypt, different ports have been encouraged, and are actually utilising the GPS system, officially allowed to operate in Egypt a month ago, to follow on transit shipments. "The perfect candidate port for the task is the East of Port Said port, now the third largest on the Mediterranean and soon to become the second," Saudi said. Other ports are becoming more competitive as well. Last year, Al-Dekheila port won a local competition as a model port in Egypt. "The LE200,000 prize was distributed among the workers to encourage more enthusiasm and loyalty. This year, seven ports are competing over the same title," said Saudi.
