ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has intensified enforcement operations at airports and dry ports and empowered the customs department to re-assign functions relating to assessment and examination of import and export goods to the Central Appraising Unit (CAU)-Faceless Customs Assessment or Centralised Examination Unit (CEU) at Karachi.
The FBR has issued a SRO.1156 (I)/ 2025 here on Wednesday to amend the SRO.1637 (I)/2024.
According to the notification, Board may re-assign functions relating to assessment and examination of import and export goods assigned to any organisation to the CAU of Faceless Customs Assessment and CEU established by the Board. Now, the designated customs officials have also been allowed to conduct information-based checking of customs cleared cargo anywhere including blocking within airport or dry port areas.
The FBR had introduced the Centralised Customs Examination system by establishing a Centralised Examination Unit (CEU) at Karachi where all examinations of imported consignments would be completed on the same day.
According to the new procedure, in order to improve the quality of customs examinations, bring transparency, expedite clearance of goods and enhance trade facilitation, the Centralised Customs Examination is introduced.
The Board has established Faceless Customs Assessment (FCA) to improve the quality of assessment, bring uniformity and transparency in processing of Goods Declarations (GDs), rationalise the workload of Appraising Officers (AOs) and ensure trade facilitation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
