Dominican Customs guarantees speedy retrievals

http://www.dominicantoday.com 08/03/07

The Dominican Customs Agency today guaranteed the agility of procedures in the application of tariff preferences, so that merchandise included in this regime are retrieved in less than 48 hours, according to the term established in the DR-CAFTA accord, and in Law 226-06.

Customs Technical assistant director Eduardo Rodriguez said that though Customs has the obligation to verify the merchandise’s origin, these will be dispatched according within 48 hours, and the information subsequently verified via a validation process.

"Customs has mechanisms to exchange information with the Customs of the United States and with all the agreement’s signatory countries, which will allow to later validate the information, this doesn’t mean that the merchandise will remain in the ports until the institution investigates if the item is original, rather the merchandise is dispatched and by means of a cross-referencing procedure that information is subsequently verified," Rodriguez said.

The official, in a statement received by Dominican Today, said that the DR-CAFTA’s implementation has re-dimensioned the role of Customs, which now becomes and administrator of the treaties, and that in the measure in which the country continues widening its commercial relations, its work will be more demanding.

The official and International Trade specialist cited as an example that Dominican Republic is currently negotiating with the European Union, and that in a term of 2 years it will be necessary to negotiate with Mexico and Canada to be able to accumulate origin with those countries in the DR-CAFTA.

He said that Customs’ modernization and efficiency process implies that in the coming days the organism will install x-ray equipment in all ports and border crossings, which will help to retrieve merchandise faster and will allow to improve the collections process.

Rodriguez said that for the import of vehicles these must adhere to the requirements of origin, not that they be a U.S. brand, but that must be made in the United States and that they meet the rules of origin, which stipulate that it must either have more than 35 percent of U.S. or CAFTA components.

He clarified that in the case of used cars these must have a certificate of origin that guarantees that they have not undergone a transformation that turns it into an item that doesn’t qualify to receive the tariff preference. "Therefore - Rodriguez said - not all the used items, with exception of the remanufactured ones, benefit from the agreement because they don’t meet the origin requirement, because no one is going to validate that that vehicle won or lost origin, which also occurs with a series of used goods."

The officials added that Customs investigated and determined that vehicles assembled in the United States, as is the case of Toyota and other makes, adhere to the rules of origin, and for that reason will pay a 15 percent tariff.