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Cayman Islands Customs urges companies to register for Online Clearance

Although Customs had some challenges with the functionality of our new IT platform when it was first rolled out on November 1st, 2017, most of the glitches have been fixed, and we have processed so far over 300 declarations and counting. 

Thus far, over 600 importers have been registered and verified as recognised traders with Customs and this amount is increasing daily. 

At the same time, with regards to the story in today’s (30 November 2017) Caymanian Compass, we have not received any application from Cox Lumber Company or their agent. This means they are not using our Customs Online Portal (COLS) to submit any declarations to Customs. 

Currently, Cox Lumber Company uses a customs broker agency that submits, on their behalf, hardcopy declarations that take a longer time to process through our legacy systems. 

According to our records, we received the declaration for the windows and other goods late Mondayafternoon the 27th of November, 2017, and they were cleared and released around 3 pm yesterday afternoon (29th of November, 2017). 

Since learning of the article written in the Cayman Compass today, Customs decided to reach out to the Customs Broker that handles Cox Lumber Company’s imports and encouraged them to have the company registered as soon as possible. 

For the interim, Customs continues to allow importers to use our legacy system to clear their imports; however, we encourage importers to get registered in COLS as imports using this system will be given priority. 

At the same time, we will continue to offer priority clearances for perishables such as food, medicines, and live animals regardless of the method used.  Even though imports have increased for the period, having electronic declarations coming through COLS is helping Customs better manage and facilitate trade during importers’ busy season.

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