KARACHI: Naveed Abbas, Additional Director and Chief Domain Officer, Pakistan Single Window (PSW) has said that 27 banks will be integrated with the PSW for the facilitation of import and exports.
He was addressing at an orientation session organized by Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMA).
He said that the facility will help reduce time, cost, and complexity to ensure ease of business, besides supporting the government agencies in adopting an integrated risk management approach for efficient enforcement of control on cross-border trade.
Under the PSW platform, he said, an ICT-based port community system will also be established and all stakeholders including FIA, Customs, terminal operators, and others will be integrated for efficient cargo management at seaports, airports, dry ports, and land border crossings.
The implementation of PSW by June 2022 will enable Pakistan to achieve compliance with WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement besides helping to unlock its potential in becoming a hub for trade and transit.
He informed that thousand of registrations have been received so far in the PSW portal whereas 27 banks will also be integrated with PSW which would save the business community from visiting banks to fulfill the requirement of Export and Import forms. Right now in the first phase, PSW have five large banks integrated and other are under process.
Yawar Nawaz, Additional Director (PSW) gave a detailed presentation on the main context of Pakistan Single Window (PSW) is to efficient cross border trade management – key enabler for FDI, GVCs integration, International Trade & Transit; 75 Regulators – working in silos with weak controls, limited resources, antiquated regulations/enforcement; Resultant Thick Borders – nullifies strategic location of Pakistan & investment in allied infrastructure and NSW to overhaul management of external trade/transit & fulfil commitment under WTO’s TFA.
The Scope of PSW is that Single ICT based National Trade Platform for processing cross border trade; Process re-engineering & back-end automation of participating government departments; Port Community System for removing logistic side inefficiencies; Integrated Risk Management for smarter controls, compliance & facilitation; Integrated Tariff Management System for simplified compliance; A robust Business Model for sustainable operations & phased expansion.
The Core Services of PSW are Integrated Tariff Management System, Unified Registration System, Unified e-Payment System, Integrated Lab Management, Integrated Risk Management System, Joint Inspections, Port Community System, Trade Information Portal, Alignment of WeBOC, Hardware, Change Management and Implementation Plan.
The Cardinals for PSW is to eliminating redundancy & duplication, least physical engagement among stakeholders, use of standardized and harmonized data elements, incremental submission of structured data with parallel processing, automatic routing & verifications and real time information exchange. Samar Jamil, BPM Head (PSW) briefed the Registration Process step by step.
After detailed presentation, exporters asked several questions related to PSW which was answered by the PSW Team of Officials.
Muhammad Jawed Bilwani Chief Coordinator & Former Central Chairman PHMA welcomed the PSW Officials at PHMA for this orientation seminar to enlighten the exporters about the main features of PSW which will provide single electronic platform for facilitating compliance with regulatory regime for cross border trade in Pakistan and to answer questions asked by exporters.
Shahzad Azam Khan, Central Chairman PHMA; Abdul Rehman, Chairman (SZ) PHMA; Abdul Kadir Bilwani, Senior Vice-Chairman; Faisal Arshad Shaikh, Vice-Chairman also participated in the Seminar and appreciated this imperative initiative which is a need of time to provide single and unified platform for business requirements which will decrease the cost of manufacturing and shall increase the ease of doing business.
