The Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) this week made a bold move towards eliminate unnecessary delays at the country’s exit points by launching the Advance Ruling Programme.
The programme, a €5 million multi-stakeholder initiative, funded by the European Union (EU) under the Pan African envelope and implemented by the World Customs Organisation, enables seamless facilitation and timely movement of goods, and helps reduce disputes during the clearance of goods.
“This is a significant development for Namibia. The launch is taking place at the time when NamRa is still at an infant stage, having become operational just slightly over a year ago. This is a key achievement and milestones towards the modernisation of NamRA,” said Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) Executive Secretary Paulina Elago.
She added that the Advance Ruling Programme, which was officially launched by NamRA Commissioner Sam Shivute, provides for transparent and formal processes upon which importers and exporters receive, upon request, a binding written ruling from a Customs Administration prior to the transaction.
“In doing business it is critical that there is predictability across the entire value chain of doing business including the customs requirements at the borders. It is important that our traders are certain with regards to importation requirements for their goods, as this will reduce chances of misclassification on products and time spent by Customs administration in classifying goods. In addition, this will make our business in the region to be more competitive and maximise on benefits that have arisen from developments such as the AfCFTA among others,” said Elago.
EU Ambassador to Namibia, Sinikka Antila said “Tariff classification allows us to have a common language in trade, the 6 common digits provide us with a common denominator that allows for mutual recognition of products, making trade and business for that matter easier and faster. This is one of 13 WTO Trade Facilitation (TF) measures, but very important and needs to be implemented before mid-2023. Namibia is well-advanced on this, thanks to support from the EU-World Customs Organization Programme for Harmonized System in Africa.”
NamRA has three forms of advance rulings namely an advance binding ruling on classification, valuation and origin.
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