News
The Ministry of Finance (MOF)’s Customs and Tariff Bureau has unveiled the results of a survey that it had conducted on amounts of time consumed on customs-clearance formalities for importing shipments to Japan.
The average number of hours (from when import declarations are made with customhouses to when approvals are granted) was 2.4 for seaborne shipments, 0.2 hours shorter than when the previous survey was conducted in 2012. Meanwhile, the average for air cargo was 0.3 hours, which remained nearly unchanged.
The average number of hours consumed from when vessels arrive at ports in Japan to when approvals are given was 59.5 (60.7 in 2012). Hours spent from when airfreight carriers land in Japan to when approvals are granted were 12.8 on average (13.4 in 2012). As these figure indicate, the averages both became shorter than when the previous survey was given for both sea and air shipments.
The average time spent having import shipments for which special declarations are made by importers who are authorized economic operators (AEOs) clear customs inspections was zero hours for those imported by sea, an improvement from 0.1 hours in 2012, and zero hours for those imported by air, which remained unchanged.
The seven-day survey was conducted on March 9-15 at 16 governmental organizations for marine cargo and eight for airfreight with which import declarations were made for general cargo through the Nippon Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System (NACCS). Average hours were calculated from approximately 2,900 of the former and approximately 2,400 of the latter, both of which were selected at random. As for those for which special declarations were made by AEOs, some 900 shipments imported by sea and some 800 imported by air were covered.
