A long way to go for National Single Window

Introducing the National Single Window (NSW) to reduce the time and cost of doing business is still a far cry as the project is progressing at a snail’s pace even after five years of starting its implementation.

According to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) which is implementing the project, around 319,000 traders – exporters and importers – are expected to be benefitted in the fifth year of the implementation of the NSW.

The NSW is being implemented under the Bangladesh Regional Connectivity Project 1.

The NBR officials hope that five years after implementing the NSW, the average processing time for import will be reduced to five days which is about 7-15 days at present while the average processing time for export would also decrease significantly.

However, introducing the NSW is still a far cry although implementation of the project started five years ago. The duration of the project will be extended further, said sources concerned.

Implementation of the project is being delayed as most of the government entities and departments are yet to be integrated under the NSW, said NBR officials.

In August 2018, the NBR signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 38 departments and entities to implement the NSW. Even after five years of starting the project, the overall physical progress is almost zero, although around Tk 204 crore has already been released till September last.

Project director (PD) of NSW Zakia Sultana, however, claimed that the project implementation work is now getting momentum. “At present, we are working to recruit vendor for the project,” she said.

The NSW implementation project started in July 2017 and was primarily scheduled to be completed by June 2020. Later, it was revised and the time was extended to December 2023.

The estimated cost of the project is Tk 585 crore. Tk 55.66 crore is coming from the government exchequer while the World Bank is providing Tk 529 crore.

The NBR officials hope that implementing the NSW will pave the way to the clearance of an increased number of international cargos at the country’s sea ports.

The NSW implementation will also reduce the time and cost of doing business, ensuring consistency in all stages starting from regularity requirements to the clearance of goods, according to a report of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division under the Planning Ministry.

According to the report, NSW will establish a user-friendly electronic system that streamlines and automates the procedures for registered private sector stakeholders and government agencies.

It will also check the duty evasion in export and import and expedite international trade. The traders will get various facilities to carry out export and import activities under this window.

At present, the traders face hassles during import and export clearances as an importer has to get approval from several government agencies before unloading a single crate of imported goods.

The procedures take a lot of time and the importers have to bear the additional expenses of visiting multiple government offices for clearance approval. The exporters also face similar difficulties during the export procedures.

At present, the average time required to complete the import clearance process at Benapole land port is over 10 days, according to the latest time release study (TRS) prepared by NBR.

The corresponding time for doing the same job in Chattogram and Dhaka is over 11 days and over 7 days consecutively.

The average time to complete the import clearance process in Chattogram for pharmaceutical goods is over 14 days.

The TRS report added that a major share of 72%–78% of the clearance processing time is spent on collecting and submitting import documents.