KARACHI: The Directorate General of Customs Valuation has revised the customs values of energy drinks vide Valuation Ruling No: 1260/2018 under Section 25A of the Customs Act-1969.
The Customs values of various brands of energy drinks from different origins were earlier determined vide Valuation Ruling No. 1203/2017 dated 22.08.2017. Director General Customs Valuation vide Order-in-Revision No. 420/2017 dated 19.12.2017 directed to determine the customs value of non-carbonated energy drinks with brand name Carabao under section 25-A of the Customs Act, 1969.
As a stop-gap arrangement, the customs value of Carabao non-carbonated energy drink was notified vide VDB No.247/2018 dated 1.1.2018. Since the previous Valuation Ruling was almost six months old, it was deemed expedient to re-determine values of Energy Drinks in line with the international price trends. Hence, an exercise was initiated by this Directorate General to determine the customs values afresh.
A meeting with stakeholders and importers of subject goods was held on 07.02.2018.The commercial importers contended that since the subject goods are mainly sold at super and general stores, therefore, a lot more expenses (breakage due to shifting from place to place, expiry, marketing expenses) etc. are incurred thus increasing their retail prices.
M/s IBL Operations, importer of Red Bull energy drinks from Austria contended that the values fixed vide the existing ruling are already on the higher side and requested for the acceptance of their declared value.
M/s AFU International and M/s Hakimzay International also requested for downward revision of the existing Valuation Ruling. The view point of all stakeholders was considered before arriving at customs values of energy drinks.
Valuation methods provided in Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969 were duly followed and applied sequentially to address the valuation issue at hand. The transaction value method as provided in Sub-Section (1) of Section 25, was found inapplicable in light of the wide variety of invoices submitted at import stage, the veracity of which could not be ascertained fully, hence requisite information required under law was not available to arrive at the correct transaction value. Identical / similar goods value methods provided in Sub-Sections (5) & (6) of Section 25 ibid were examined for applicability to determine Customs value of the subject goods. This data provided some references, however, it was found that the same cannot be solely relied upon due to variation in the same.
