Customs and Excise Invites the ASEAN Community to Facilitate Trade in a More Modern Way

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA – The Indonesian government through the Directorate General of Customs and Excise is hosting the 5th meeting of the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement Working Group On Customs Procedures And Trade Facilitation (the 5th ATIGA WG-CPTF) which is part of the ASEAN Summit agenda this week .

Director of International Cooperation, Customs and Excise, Anita Iskandar, said that the purpose of this meeting was to reach agreement on articles that had not yet reached a consensus.

"We encourage our commitment to perfect the renewal of customs procedures and trade facilitation to be achieved," he said in a written statement, Friday, September 8.

According to Anita, the understanding that is built is important to produce an agreement that takes the ATIGA agreement in a better direction.

"Despite allocating 10 rounds of meetings within a period of 2 years to complete the preparation of the CPTF Chapter, the fifth ATIGA WGCPTF meeting has achieved 75 percent of the CPTF Chapter discussion target," she said.

Anita explained that ATIGA WG-CPTF is one of the working groups in the context of updating the ATIGA agreement. This working group has a special task to explore potential new elements related to customs procedures and trade facilitation in the ATIGA scheme, as well as preparing updates to chapters related to Customs Procedures and Trade Facilitation (CPTF).

"Renewal of the CPTF chapter in the ATIGA scheme is deemed necessary to support ASEAN to become an increasingly modern and responsive free trade area," she stressed.

Meanwhile, the implementation of this CPTF chapter will not only have an impact on policy makers in the government sector, but also on the private sector, especially entrepreneurs in the export-import sector.

She said that to support efforts to renew the CPTF chapter in the ATIGA scheme, Customs and Excise also initiated a sharing session program on the topic of implementing customs procedures. Each ASEAN member country can share information regarding customs procedural practices in the context of preferential tariff claims.

"Holding the 5th ATIGA WG-CPTF meeting is an opportunity for Indonesia to improve the image of Indonesian customs administration at the ASEAN level, and strengthen its leadership role in the ASEAN Chairmanship by maximizing the momentum of Indonesia's chairmanship in ASEAN in 2023," she concluded.