KARACHI: The Directorate General of Customs Valuation revised the customs value of cotton waste through Valuation Ruling No 1090/2017 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969.
According to details, the Valuation Directorate earlier conducted an audit of the clearance values and found the same to be on the lower side, in comparison with the international trading and national selling prices. As an immediate remedial measure this Directorate General of Customs Valuation had issued a Valuation Database Value Vide VDB Letter No. 05 dated 09.06.2016.
Subsequently, representations were received from APTMA (letter no. ADM/SEC-2/206 dated 24.02.2017) for revisiting the VDB value. Furthermore, since a substantial time period had passed since the issuance of the VDB value, an exercise was thus undertaken to determine the Customs Values of subject goods under section 25-A of the Customs Act, 1969 and therefore, converting the VDB value into a Valuation Ruling.
Sources said that a meeting was held on 27-02-2017 with stakeholders including importers, local manufacturers who were importing cotton waste for further processing and officials of clearance Collectorates. The points of view of all stakeholders were tabled and deliberated upon. It transpired that for purpose of proper valuation, the subject goods need to be segregated categories-wise, for valuation.
It was agreed upon that as the base value is to be calculated by taking previous three month data taken from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) which, on daily-basis, publishes the international trading prices of cotton (in pounds).
From the three previous months data a simple average would be taken (without any out-layers) to neutralize the fluctuations in trading prices. Representative of M/s APTMA in the capacity of industry-experts provided suggestions regarding values of the various kinds/categories of cotton wastes in relevance to the international trading prices derived from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the same were considered at the time of final determination calculations under section 25A of Customs Act, 1969.