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Upon the completion of the necessary legislative procedure, the Government will only accept electronic manifests from ocean and river cargo carriers from June 16.
A spokesman for the Government said that all carriers concerned had already been informed of the new statutory requirement. "We are pleased to note that the majority of active carriers have already made the necessary preparation for full migration to the use of electronic manifests services in mid-June this year. For the few carriers that have not yet registered, we urge them to do so as soon as possible, unless it is their plan to use the service providers' service centres to convert paper manifests into electronic submissions," he said.
"There are at present two service providers for electronic manifest services, namely Global e-Trading Services Limited and Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited. The carriers concerned can submit electronic manifests from a computer in their office through one of these two service providers. Alternatively, they can have their paper manifests converted into electronic submission through the Electronic Trading Access Service provided by both service providers," the spokesman added.
To promote electronic commerce, improve efficiency and reduce the use of paper, the Government has, since 1997, introduced the Government Electronic Trading Services for the trading community to submit via service providers a number of official trade-related documents including cargo manifests.
The electronic services for cargo manifests for air, rail, river and ocean modes of transport were launched in April 2003. The use of electronic manifest services has been mandatory since July 2004 for air and rail cargoes, and will become mandatory from June 16 for ocean and river cargoes.
Ends/Monday, June 5, 2006
Issued at HKT 11:01
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