KARACHI: The Directorate General of Customs Valuation revised the customs value of potato frozen French fries through Valuation Ruling No 1308/2018 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969.
Earlier Customs values of potato frozen French fries were determined through Valuation Ruling No.1258/2018 dated 14-02-2018.
However, various representations were received from the importers for re-determination of values of potato frozen French fries. Hence, an exercise was initiated by this Directorate General to determine the customs values of potato frozen French fries.
Meetings with stakeholders, including importers and representatives from field formations, were held on 28-05-2018 and 12-06-2018.
Certain importers contended that the customs values determined vide the impugned Valuation Ruling are high and therefore require revision downward in line with the prevailing prices in the international market.
M/s. Food Mart Foods PK requested for the inclusion of frozen fries brands from Europe and Africa in the Valuation Ruling. M/s. Quick Food Industries (Pvt.) Limited stated that they are one of the oldest and largest importers of Frozen French Fries,
Importing French Fries from M/s. McCain Foods since around 15 year and recently they have started importing `Monsalwa French Fries’ from India. Now they are also going to import frozen fries `Monsalwa’ from Netherlands/Europe at a cheaper rate.
M/s International Trading House requested for downward revision of values of French Fries brand ‘Lamb Weston’ from Holland. The stakeholders were requested to furnish all supporting documents and evidences in support of their contentions so that the same could be considered. All the record furnished to this Directorate General was carefully examined to arrive at customs values of subject goods.
Method adopted to determine Customs values: Valuation methods provided in Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969 were duly applied in their regular sequential order to address the particular 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 declared values at import stage, hence requisite information required under law was not available to arrive at the correct transaction value. Identical / similar goods value method provided vide Sub-Sections (5) & (6) of Section 25 ibid were examined for applicability to determine Customs value of subject goods.
