Customs Import Data – An Effective Lifeline of Foreign Traders

No country can ever be self-sufficient. They have to exchange goods and services with their neighboring and far away nations in order to compensate for the deficiencies in natural resources and supply of labor. International trade has grown with a stride in the recent years thanks to many economic policies and amendments in foreign trade policies that made most countries liberal and supportive to foreign trade. Foreign trade refers to the exchange of goods and services between two countries. When the goods and services produced by a country leave its borders it becomes international trade. International trade is governed by international trade laws and statutes as laid down by World Trade Organization. Every country also has its own customs and duties rules that regulate the inflow and outflow of goods.

Need and role of custom import data

Custom import data is prepared and maintained by the customs departments of a country. The department is usually attached to the central government and will be directed and supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Customs department ensure that all goods that pass the nation’s border are properly registered as per international product norms and carry necessary export documents permitting the export. Similarly all imports are also regulated to ensure that no toxic or banned materials are bought into the country through discreet sources. The purpose of this screening is to ensure that no goods enter or leave the country without the knowledge of customs department. This also helps in prevention of evasion of customs duties and cess and earns significant income for the government.

Process of preparing custom import data

Custom import data is usually compiled at each sea port by customs officials. They are provided to international traders through export import countries to facilitate more foreign trade and to ease local transactions. Users can also look up with past directories of custom import data and obtain various details like warehouse location, contacts of exporters, demand for specific products, etc. Import data released by export import companies also accompany detailed statistics of imports country-wise, product-wise and period -wise that give detailed insights into seasonal patterns and product demands. All these data will be stored in a central server of the customs department in electronic form. They can also be retrieved in hard copies or in CD-ROMs one submitted a request to the customs officials. They help traders in generating reports that are required for specific purposes.