The EDE system for exchange of data relating to consignment covered under China Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) has been completed and its pilot phase has now been rolled out, which covers exchange of data relating to certificate of origin under CPFTA along with export Goods Declaration (GD). Pakistan Customs has rolled out pilot phase of Pak-China Electronic Data Exchange (EDE) system at all concerned collectorates across the country.
The customs department in this regard issued instructions to all concerned collectorates, according to which:
The traders or customs agents filing import GD while claiming benefit of SRO related to CPFTA are now required to declare certificate of origin number and date issued by Chinese authorities under WeBOC system.
Then, the system, which will cross match the declared certificate of origin and date with the data received from China customs, will make available the certificate of origin and export goods declaration data received from China customs through EDE mechanism on assessment screen to enable assessing officer to view the data for system based verification of certificate of origin and proper assessment of import GD with certificate of origin and relevant Chinese export GD data received electronically from China Customs. The result of grant or denial of benefit of FTA by the assessing officer will now be electronically communicated to the Chinese side through EDE message.
The customs department stated that during the initial few days of implementation phase, the data of consignment already exported from China prior to live deployment of system will not be available for cross verification. However the data of all consignments exported from China after the date of implementation of EDE system shall be available in WeBOC. All collectorates have also been directed to make necessary preparations for the implementation of EDE system on immediate basis.
