KARACHI: The Directorate General of Customs Valuation has revised the customs values of porcelainware/glassware through Valuation Ruling No 1088/2017 under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969.
According to details, the Customs values of porcelainware/glassware were determined vide Valuation Ruling No. 788/2016 dated 05-01-2016. It was deemed expedient to revise the Valuation Ruling in order to make it reflective of current prices prevailing in the international market. Hence, an exercise was conducted to determine customs values of subject goods afresh.
Sources said that meetings with stakeholders were scheduled on 08-02-2017 and 23-02-2017. The stakeholders were requested to submit invoices of imports during last three months showing factual value, websites, names and e-mail addresses of known foreign manufacturers of the item in question through which the actual current value can be ascertained, copies of contracts made/LCs opened during the last three months showing the value of item in question and copies of Sales Tax Invoices issued during last three months showing the difference in price (excluding duty and taxes) to substantiate that the benefit of difference in price is passed on to the local buyers.
Some importers of porcelainware/glassware appeared for meeting on 23-02- 2017 and contended that there was no change in the international market. Only a few invoices were submitted but the documents, as requisitioned, were not submitted. Even after a lapse of over a week, no documents have been received in this regard.
Valuation methods given in Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969 were followed. Transaction value method provided in Section 25 (1) was found inapplicable because the requisite information was not available as per law. Identical/similar goods value methods provided in Section 25(5) & (6) were also not found helpful in determination of values due to wide variation in values. Online values were also checked Consequently, market inquiries as envisaged under Section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969, were conducted but the same could not be exclusively relied upon as the prices varied according to the selling point in the city.
Since the manufacturers’ costs and raw material prices of producing the goods in question in the country of exportation were not available, computed value method as provided in Section 25(8) could not be applied for valuation of the aforesaid goods. All the information so gathered was analyzed and consequently, reliance was placed upon Sub-Section (9) of Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969_ and customs values of porcelainware/glassware were determined under Section 25(9) of the Customs Act, 1969.