By Chino S. Leyco

The Department of Finance (DOF) is working with various trade regulatory government agencies (TRGAs) in a series of tariff harmonization and classification workshops this month to gather the base data needed to run its digital import-export permit platform.

In a statement, Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran, who is the DOF’s anti-red tape czar, said the workshops aim to gather 42 agencies that regulate trade products and to harmonize their tariff codes.

According to Beltran, this is part of the government’s initiatives to facilitate trade and ease of doing business in the country.

The workshops are facilitated by the Tariff Commission (TC) in coordination with the DOF Inter-Agency Business Process Interoperability (IABPI) Team, and the Bureau of Import Service of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

The workshop series will run weekly for five-days from September to October at the TC office in Quezon City.

“The results of the workshops will be used as base data of the Tariff Code and Commodities that will be used by TC, Bureau of Customs, and the regulatory agencies on TradeNet,” said Beltran in his report submitted to to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III.

The harmonization of trade commodity codes was one of the agreements during the April 2018 meeting of the National Single Window (NSW) Steering Committee, which is headed by Dominguez.

TradeNet aims to link 76 TRGAs through a common database and shorten the processing of transactions for import and export clearances. The system is expected to minimize the costs of doing business and cut the processing time for the issuance of import and export permits.

Also, TradeNet will serve as the Philippines’ link to the ASEAN Single Window (ASW), a regional initiative that aims to speed up cargo clearances and promote economic integration by enabling the electronic exchange of border documents among the organization’s 10 member-states.