News
Hong Kong's Customs and Excise Department （C&ED） officially implemented the Road Cargo System （ROCARS） for all imports and exports of road cargo on November 17, 2011.
ROCARS is an infrastructure for electronic customs clearance for import and export cargoes by road transport. The key features of the ROCARS are as follows:
（1） a shipper or a freight forwarder acting as a shipper provides a pre-defined set of cargo data to C&ED electronically through ROCARS not earlier than 14 days before the cargo consignment enters or exits Hong Kong by truck;
（2） as an acknowledgment, ROCARS returns a reference number for the cargo consignment to the shipper who would then pass it on to the relevant trucker;
（3） not less than 30 minutes2 before his truck is due to pass through a land boundary control point （LBCP）, the trucker does the ''bundling'' by providing to C&ED, through ROCARS:
（i） the reference number of the cargo consignment; and
（ii） his vehicle's registration number;
（4） C&ED performs risk profiling on the cargo before a truck arrives at a LBCP and determines in advance whether inspection is called for; and
（5） an instruction on whether a truck needs to be inspected will be shown on a visual display unit at the LBCP. A truck not selected for inspection may leave immediately after the trucker has completed immigration clearance.
