The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has made it compulsory for the government departments that apply trade controls on import, export, and transit goods, cleared through the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) system, to implement an Integrated Risk Management System (IRMS).
The FBR issued SRO.1728(I)2023 on Monday to implement Pakistan Single Window Integrated Risk Management System Rules, 2023.
These rules shall apply to all government agencies that apply trade controls on import, export, and transit goods cleared through the PSW system whether through scanning or other forms of non-intrusive inspection technology, physical inspections, withdrawing of samples, detailed examinations, or documentary controls in the form of licenses, permits, certificates, and other documents by the regulatory requirements of the government agencies.
There shall be an Integrated Risk Management System (IRMS) implemented through the PSW system to apply trade controls, management procedures, and risk mitigation measures on imports, exports, and transit goods in a coordinated manner to ensure equitable balance between ensuring compliance and trade facilitation to reduce the time and cost of doing business.
The IRMS shall apply to all cross-border trade consignments being cleared through the PSW system. All goods shall be assigned to risk channels by the IRMS based on risk criteria defined by the government agencies in the system.
The clearance process thereof may involve scanning or other forms of non-intrusive inspections, physical inspections, detailed examination, drawing of samples, laboratory tests, and laboratory reports; scrutiny of documents and request for additional documents; provisional release with further controls to be applied at the importer’s premises after release from the customs area and clearance as per declaration.
Provided that the operating entity, with the approval of the GC Risk Management Committee, may add or reduce a risk channel duly notified from time to time to streamline the application of risk controls in line with best practices, it added.
The Governing Council (GC) shall constitute an inter-agency Risk Management Committee to provide strategic direction, principles, policies, guidance, and oversight for the IRMS, ensure collaboration amongst government agencies for the implementation of the IRMS, and review outcomes and effectiveness of risk activities and impact on compliance levels in addition to other tasks assigned by the GC.
The operating entity shall establish a center of excellence (COE) to operate and maintain the IRMS, receive and process change requests, monitor the performance of the system, and support IRMS-related training and capacity-building initiatives. The COE shall also be responsible for extracting, analyzing, and sharing IRMS-related data and feedback with the risk management committees and other relevant stakeholders, FBR added.
