KARACHI: The Directorate General of Customs Valuation has revised the customs value of Medical Items through Valuation Ruling No 1021/2017 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969.
This Directorate General has earlier circulated reference customs values of different medical items/equipment Vide Valuation Data Base Letter Nos.83/2016, 84/2016, 143/2016, 144/2016, 145/2016, 159/2016, 160/2016, 161/2016 and 162/2016. However, some importers approached this Directorate General and requested revision of certain VDBs. Therefore, this Directorate General initiated an exercise for determination of customs value for the subject goods.
Meeting with stakeholders was held on 25-01-2017. The stakeholders were requested to furnish the following documents before or during the course of above said meeting, Invoices of imports during last three months showing factual value, Websites, names and E-mail addresses of known foreign manufacturers of the item in question through which the actual current value can be ascertained, Copies of Contracts made / LCs opened during the last three months showing the value of item in question, Copies of Sales Tax Invoices issued during last four months showing the difference in price (excluding duty and taxes) to substantiate that the benefit of difference in price is passed on to the local buyers.
The representatives of Pakistan Chemist and Druggists Association and many importers attended the meeting. The Association and importers agreed with most of the prices circulated vide VDBs as reflective of traded values. However, agitating on few items some importers claimed that the circulated customs values were on higher side, whereas as per their claim, there was a downward trend in prices in the international market. However they did not submit any corroboratory document/evidence in support of their contentions. All the items’ values were discussed one by one in detail.
Method adopted to determine Customs values: Valuation methods given in Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969 were followed to arrive at customs value of different types of medical items. Transaction value method provided in Section 25 (1) was found inapplicable Wing’, to wide variation in the values being declared to the customs and incomplete descriptions.
Identical/ similar goods value methods provided in Section 25 (5) & (6) were examined for applicability to the valuation issue in the instant case which provided some reference values of the subject goods but the same could not be exclusively relied on due to wide variation in declared values of subject goods. Thereafter, market enquiry as envisaged under Section 25 (7) of the Customs Act, 1969, was conducted. A number of items sold in the local market were obtained and customs values were worked back from the same.
