4th Report of the Market Access Ombudsman Council (March 17, 1997)

7-(1) Simplification of presentation of documents using electronic systems

1. Complainant: Tokyo Chamber of Commerce

2. Ministry concerned: Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)

3. Background:

Article 68, Clause 1 of the Customs Duties Law requires that an original invoice be submitted to Customs when cargoes are imported, to allow Customs duties on the cargo to be assessed. The NACCS (Customs Information Processing System) electronic system is currently used, and this system handles various Customs procedures and associated private sector clerical work.

Importers must also submit an invoice (copies are acceptable) to Customs, in accordance with the reporting requirements under Article 16 of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law, Article 16 of the Import Trade Control Law, and Article 10 of the regulations for control of import trade. In accordance with Article 17 of the Import Trade Control Law, the invoice submitted is used in post-facto examination to establish whether the import cargo in question meets legal requirements. In certain cases, the importer is required to provide a report, and the information on the invoice is used to extract various statistics and to study trends in goods imports.

4. Complaint:

Currently, when merchandise is imported, importers submit an original invoice for MITI when the Customs declaration is made, along with an invoice for Customs. The NACCS system used by Customs incorporates all the contents required by MITI, and accordingly MITI should obtain data from NACCS and eliminate the requirement for an invoice for MITI.

5. Results of deliberation:

Streamlining of Customs procedures should be actively promoted, to reduce the burden on businesses; electronic information and other technologies should be used as advantageously as possible for this.

According to the concerned ministry, the NACCS does not incorporate all the information which the ministry uses for post-facto examination and for extracting various statistics based on invoices. The parties concerned are currently discussing whether the NACCS can be used to streamline import procedures.

This is a positive development, and from the perspective of reducing the burden on businesses, a conclusion concerning review (including reduction of the number of items on which information is required, and the use of the NACCS) of the requirement to present invoices to MITI should be reached by the end of FY1997, and the concerned parties should take steps in this direction.

Government decision (March 25,1997)

6-(1) Simplification of presentation of documents using electronic systems

The requirement to submit invoices to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry for post-import inspection and for statistics-keeping purposes will be reviewed in order to reduce the burden on companies. The review will include reducing the number of particulars required, and the use of NACCS (Nippon Automated Cargo Clearance System), and discussions will be undertaken with the aim of reaching a conclusion in FY 1997.