RIYADH: The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has extended the period of exemption of customs duties from six to 12 months for industrial houses, following frequent requests and appeals by industrialists.
An official from the ministry said the extension is being given to facilitate the procedures for the owners of industrial institutions.
Customs duty is levied on raw material, half-manufactured goods, equipment and spare parts.
The official said the fresh move is aimed to improve the industrial environment and attract investments, besides their resettlement in the Kingdom.
The Saudi Customs has developed and simplified the customs procedures to accelerate the release of imported, exported and transit goods.
The computerization of customs operations started with the implementation of automation and advanced technologies at the Customs Headquarters and at all ports.
The goods release procedures are electronic for transactions such as import, export, tariff, exemption, revenue, international conventions, importers and brokers’ data, vehicles customs card, passengers and vehicle tracking, administrative and financial systems and legal purpose.
A single customs declaration form has been implemented for all transactions (import, export, transit, re-export, and bonded warehouses) instead of a separate form for each transaction.
The customs policy aims to achieve an economic integration between the Kingdom and other Arab countries. Such integration is attainable by encouraging the import and export of domestic origin through the Arab League; unification, coordination and simplification of customs procedures; and granting preferential privileges, the most important of which is the exemption of domestic products from customs duties.
The Kingdom has acceded to the Customs Cooperation Council ‘CCC’ (currently, World Customs Organization ‘WCO’) in Brussels according to the Royal Decree No. M/68 dated 29/12/l392H (Feb. 3, 1973) to benefit from the technical customs expertise, follow up the changes that will occur to the tariff nomenclature and attend the meetings held by the council’s committees.
The accession to the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System took place on 15/6/1411H (Jan. 2 1991), which was its implementation date in the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia has acceded to the World Customs Organization (WCO) Convention on Coordination and Simplification of Customs Procedures — Kyoto Convention, Appendixes A3/B3. The nation has acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 10/11/1426H (Dec. 11, 2005) and became the 149th member at the WTO.
