KARACHI: Director General Customs Valuation Syed Tanveer Ahmed has issued Order-in-Revision No. 272/2016 under section 25-D of the Customs Act, 1969 against Valuation Ruling No. 865/2016 issued on June 6, 2016. The revision petition was filed by M/s Paspida and others.
According to details, the petitioner stated that Chinese origin automotive and motorcycle bulbs are manufactured by small home industry from very cheap raw material without involvement of any computerized machinery. Hence, these are not durable. A number of imported bulbs are found fused and/or damaged which certainly adds to their cost to the importer who had already paid for the same. Drastic decline in petroleum prices has also caused substantial decrease in the transaction value of all the importable items in the whole world.
That valuation issue of Chinese origin automotive and motorcycle bulbs, previously decided vide Valuation Ruling No.661/2014 on March 29, 2014 was disputed and questioned by various petitioners i.e. Paspida, Pama, Papaam and local manufactures and assemblers through different revision petitions.
M/s Paspida and others through file No. DG (V) Val. Rev/74 1/2016 accordingly requested re-determination of fair values of the bulbs, and if needed, through computed value method in terms of Section 25 (8) of the Customs Act, 1969, by taking into consideration prevailing assessable values of raw material / components thereof and also explained that re-determination of assessable values should not be made in a manner which may open the doors of corruption and malpractice by any quarter.
The Director General Customs Valuation, in his order, stated: “The case record and verbal submissions of the petitioner were examined. The petitioner stated that the prices have been determined on higher side whereas import prices of the subject item are available on lesser side in international market as well as in the local market. Accordingly, a market survey was conducted. The survey revealed that some values were correct but majority was at higher level. The prices were checked from Chinese websites and found on the lower side. Keeping in view the above facts, I have inferred that the contention of the importer is valid and valuation ruling needs revision. Moreover the contention of the importers is that value of parts for assembling also needs to be fixed as some people are bringing complete bulbs in the garb of assembling parts. The Directorate Valuation is directed to fix value of the parts for assemblers through a new valuation ruling in 20 days.”