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The Government has introduced legislative amendments to mandate the electronic submission of ocean and river cargo manifests. Subject to the completion of the legislative process, all manifests for ocean and river cargoes must be submitted through electronic means from June 16 onwards.
"The use of electronic services will reduce the time and manpower resources spent by the industry in submitting manifests to the Government, thereby improving overall efficiency. This mode of submission is also more environmentally friendly as carriers no longer need to prepare three copies of paper manifests for delivery to three different government departments," a government spokesman said.
"The services will also promote the wider use of e-commerce generally, thereby maintaining Hong Kong's position as a leading international trading centre," the spokesman added.
To promote electronic commerce, improve efficiency and reduce the use of paper, the Government has, since 1997, introduced electronic services for the submission of a number of trade documents. The services for electronic submission of cargo manifests in the air, rail, river and ocean modes of transport (EMAN services) were launched in April, 2003.
To allow time for the affected parties to get ready for electronic submission, we have built in the relevant legislation a transitional period in which cargo manifests can still be submitted in paper form. The transitional period for air and rail cargo manifests ended in July 2004, which means that the use of EMAN services has been mandatory since that time for air and rail cargo manifests.
"After constructive dialogues with industry representatives and having ascertained the state of readiness of ocean and river carriers, we have proposed to end the transitional period in respect of ocean and river cargo manifests at midnight on June 15, 2006.
All carriers concerned have been informed of the proposed end date and we note that they are preparing for full migration to EMAN services within the proposed timeframe," the spokesman said.
The Import and Export Ordinance (Specification of Ending Date under Section 42) Notice 2006, Import and Export (Registration) Regulations (Specification of Ending Date under Regulation 15) Notice 2006, Import and Export (General) Regulations (Specification of Ending Date under Regulation 6DAH) Notice 2006, and Reserved Commodities (Control of Imports, Exports, and Reserve Stocks) Regulations (Specification of Ending Date under Regulation 26) Notice 2006 are gazetted today (February 24). These notices specify the end date of the transitional period during which carriers may submit ocean and river cargo manifests in either paper or electronic form.
Ends/Friday, February 24, 2006
Issued at HKT 11:01
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