The Honduran Customs Administration reported this Thursday (28.10.2021/XNUMX/XNUMX) a substantial improvement in the Maritime Customs services of Puerto Cortés after two months of the implementation of the Pilot project "Customs without papers".
This project allowed a 30% reduction in inspection time, assignment of selectivity and lifting of goods, going from 5 days to 3 and a half days, the statement says.
According to the data provided, currently there have been 9,266 nationalizations y 12,402 transit operations, registering a reduction of 42,000 documents that customs users have stopped submitting during the pilot test in production.
As support tools for the implementation of the project, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, for its acronym in English), Through the Regional Trade Facilitation and Border Management Project, it donated a batch of technological equipment consisting of 10 high-end tablets, which is used in the reception of the electronic file in the merchandise clearance process.
The project “Paperless Customs” was also launched, which allows the integration and digitalization of physical documents for an online review process, which will gradually be implemented in other customs offices in the country.
In this regard, the Director of the Honduran Customs Administration, Juan José Vides, said: “We are taking a giant step in the evolution of customs modernization through the Paperless Customs project, which aims to streamline customs operations by speeding up clearances through the digitalization of supporting documents.".
For its part, the USAID Project Manager, Lorena Aceto, He expressed that “Honduras Customs has been a strategic and committed partner, advancing key issues to promote trade facilitation, such as the implementation of paperless Customs, the strengthening of the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) and Coordinated Border Management.”.
While the Manager of the Customs Agency and Representations of Honduras SA, Nelson Rivera said that “Paperless customs means a substantial saving in time in the clearance of goods, going from 10 to 3 days in the red channel, while in the yellow and green channels it takes 2 days.”.
It should be noted that the project works through the digitalization of the documents that support the Central American Single Declaration (DUCA-D) by the Customs Civil Service Assistant in the Customs Agent category, starting with the construction of the electronic file and digitalization of all documents that arise at the time that the customs official responsible for carrying out the appraisal, according to the assigned selectivity channel, performs a physical-documentary or documentary review.
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