Customs Department targets improvement in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking

“The Customs Department is committed to improving Thailand’s infrastructure and procedures in doing business to facilitate foreign entrepreneurs who are interested in investing in Thailand,” he said. “The World Bank compiles ratings for ease of doing business in each country every year and we aim to improve our rating in 2021 with these five Customs-related measures.”
He said the Customs department would improve PAP [pre-arrival processing]. The department has allowed sea freight and air freight operators to submit cargo lists in advance before arrival so that they can pay Customs tax in advance and start loading the cargo immediately when they arrive. This measure has already been employed since May 2018 and will be further streamlined to reduce processing time.
The department aims to improve the electronic bill payment system. E-payment channels are being used since January 2019, allowing entrepreneurs to pay customs fees and taxes via internet banking, mobile banking, ATM, banks’ counters and representatives without the need to come down to the Customs office. So far, six banks offer the facilities. They are: Krung Thai Bank, Government Savings Bank, Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial Bank and Bank of Ayudhya, as well as two representatives including Big C Supercenter and Counter Service. In the future the department aims to find more banking partners to increase service coverage and promote the e-payment channel to more entrepreneurs. At present 60 per cent of transactions are through e-payment.
The requirement of Customs declaration documents for products that are already listed in the e-Customs database will be scrapped, he said. This measure will help speed up the Customs process for repeated importers as well as reduce the expense on paper and printing equipment valued at approximately Bt30 million annually.
The Customs official said efficiency of risk management will be increased based on importers’ profile. This measure will help reduce the need for random inspection of products as well as reduce entrepreneurs’ related expenses like container transport fee and storage space rental for products awaiting inspection. The inspection rate of 2019 stands at 26 per cent, significantly decreasing from 37 per cent in 2018.
The department will install drive-through x-ray scanners for container inspection. Two drive-through scanners will be installed in March in addition to two fixed scanners at Laem Chabang Port. The drive-through scanner can inspect 150 containers per hour versus 30 containers per hour done by fixed scanners. This move is expected to significantly reduce waiting time for each container to be scanned and also reduce traffic congestion at the port.
For further information, check out the Customs Department website at www.customs.go.th under “Doing Business: Trading Across Border”.