Raza Kazmi
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Federal Board of Revenue Muhammad Javed Ghani inaugurated the head office of Pakistan Single Window (PSW) Company in Islamabad. On the occasion, Chairman FBR lauded efforts of Pakistan Customs to roll out Pakistan Singe Window (PSW) System almost a year before its deadline of June, 2022 set under World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement. He also appreciated Customs for reducing the project cost from initial estimates of USD 163 million to USD 67 million through indigenous development effort.
The Prime Minister had tasked Customs to complete this highly transformational project for reducing time, cost and complication while ensuring better compliances with cross border trade regulations. To ensure that this new system is timely implemented and sustainably maintained, the PSW Company has been operationalized by FBR.
The PSW Company is now enabling the Government of Pakistan to maintain complete ownership of this mission critical system of strategic national importance as it would handle entire cross border trade, related logistics and financial transactions.
Member Customs Operation S.M Tariq Huda stated on the occasion that Customs Administration was leveraging its expertise in automation for PSW to support a wide array of other public and private sector entities involved in regulation of imports, exports & transit trade. The ongoing digitization of related public sector entities under this project will substantially improve their efficiency.
PSW is instrumental for Pakistan to become a preferred route for international transit and transshipment besides it will help integrate upcoming national, regional and global single window systems. PSW will boost exports, help attract FDI and enable better integration into global value chains. It will also serve as the Trade Information Portal of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has issued a rebuttal on a news item published in a Karachi daily (Not TFD) and clarified that the meeting held under the chair of Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue only consulted the budget 2021-22 preparation of FBR. It has been categorically expressed by FBR that no decision or consultation whatsoever, was made in the meeting with regards to imposition of any new tax in the coming budget. The caption of the news story and related content is not correct.