SBP unveils steps to facilitate importers

KARACHI: Businessmen across the country are no longer required to submit original shipping/transport papers with the commercial banks for making payments of imports carried out on the basis of open account, the central bank announced on Friday.

“The initiative has been taken in the wake of requests from different stakeholders including various chambers of commerce, importers, banks etc,” State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a circular issued.

“It is because international trade is shifting from physical transfer of original transport documents to electronically transmitted ones, telex release etc. to save cost and time involved in physical transfer of such documents from foreign seller to the importer.”  Earlier, the SBP said, importers were, interalia, required to present original shipping/transport documents to authorised dealers (banks) for effecting the related import payments.

It added that further implementation of Electronic Import Form (EIF) by the central bank and Pakistan Customs had strengthened the monitoring of imports into Pakistan and related payments, thus, the possibility of multiple payments against single import consignment through different banks stands eliminated.