CBIC publishes National Time Release Study (NTRS) 2024

Mr. Vivek Johri, The Chairman of the Central Council for Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) presented a series Time-Release Studies (TRS) carried out by the department.

What is a Time Release Study?

TRS are essentially a performance measurement tool for assessing the freight handling process of international trade, as recommended by the World Trade Organization (WTO) below the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and the World Customs Organization (WCO). This is based on the average release time of the cargo, i.e. the time between arrival of the cargo at customs and the final release for import or export.

How many custom formations did NTRS 2022 cover?

The 2022 National Time Release Study (NTRS) included 15 Important Customs Formationsincluding four port categories – seaports, air cargo complexes (ACCs), inland container depots (ICDs) and integrated control posts (ICPs), which cover approximately 80 percent of entry tickets (import documents) and 70 percent of the consignment notes (export documents) and is based on the sample period between 1^st – 7^e January 2022.

Improving the average time to release cargo

The NTRS-2022 has reported a further improvement in the average time for cargo release for all four port categories in 2022 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year: 2 percent for ICPs to a significantly higher 16 percent for ACCs. For sea freight released via seaport or inland container depots, the average release time has improved by 12 percentWith this improvement, the ICPs have achieved the following goals: National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP) target release time to be reached in 2023while the other three port categories have achieved 75 percent of the NTFAP target.

NTRS 2022 and CHLTRS

NTRS-2022 and the Time release studies at customs office levelcarried out using the same dataset obtained from the automated customs system and following the same methodology, found strong confirmation for the fourfold ‘path to speed’ namely:

• Pre-submission of import documents, allowing pre-arrival processing,
• risk-based freight facilitation,
• Benefits of the Trusted Client Program – Authorized Economic Operators and
• Direct Port Delivery (DPD) facility.
• In the case of exports, the study noted that documentary clearance of export consignments, measured by the time elapsed between the arrival of the goods at the customs office and the issuance of the Let Export Order, has been significantly minimized. This time ranges from 4:04 hours in the case of ACCs to 47:41 hours in the case of ICDs.
• This time falls within the differential NTFAP target for the four port categories. However, the studies have found that due to different logistic processes, the time taken for final export after regulatory approval is long, taking into account from 60 percent of the total time in the case of integrated checkpoint up to 92 percent in the case of air cargo.

First major customs office

It may be mentioned that JNCH was the first major customs office to start annually TRS starts in 2017, and NTRS 2022 shows that the average time to release import cargo has since been halved. NTRS 2022 and local TRSs have also made certain recommendations to further reduce the average release time targets to meet the goals set in the NTFAP and improve the trade-enhancing ecosystem in the country.