The Council is grateful for the opportunity to comment on this matter. We welcome the assurances that we have received throughout the run up to the consultation – that Customs and MPI are not wanting to increase the amount recovered from importers and exporters through these changes. Rather Customs and MPI are wanting to make sure that specific goods are charged the real amount of the time that is required to process them by Customs and MPI. Some charges will increase and others will decrease.
We take Customs and MPI at their word that, overall, charges will not be increasing as a result of these changes. However, our assessment is that the bulk of our membership (our membership is predominantly made up of exporters who use sea freight for most of their exports) will be facing at least modest increases. The only groups that would seem to be benefitting from these proposed changes would be exporters and importers of high value goods imported or exported by air.
