Sunday 06 / October / 2024
Muscat: Residents and shopkeepers in Oman can soon expect faster deliveries of vital goods into the country, due to the establishment of a one-stop inspection station by Oman Customs.
The plan is to be rolled out across all of Oman’s ports and customs outlets in January 2018, with seven government agencies, including Oman Customs, collaborating to ensure an efficient and transparent service for all vendors and distributors across Oman.
The one-stop inspection stations aim to reduce the number of hours spent on the inspection of goods at different customs outlets. These include reducing the clearance time in seaports from the current 24 hours to only 10 hours, from eight hours to four hours in airports, and from three hours to two hours across land routes.
“The inspection platform at the one-stop inspection station will include six other relevant government agencies: the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Ministry of Regional Municipalities, the Ministry of Health, the Muscat Municipality and Dhofar Municipality,” said Col. Khalifa Al Siyabi, Director General of Oman Customs.
“All representatives of the relevant parties will be physically present at the goods inspection sites at the same time, and these stations will operate 24 hours a day,” he added.
At a ceremony, Oman Customs also announced the names of the new four Authorised Economic Operators (AEOs) in the Sultanate. The companies that were awarded these AEO certificates were Khimji Ramdas Shipping, Huawei Tech Investment Oman, Octal SAOC FZC and Reem Batteries and Power Appliances Co. SAOC
“The licenced economic operator seeks to build a real and effective partnership between the private sector and customs department, and offers a range of privileges and facilities for companies,” added Col. Al Siyabi.
Companies that have previously been authorised as economic operators include Al Madina Logistics, Sea Safe Trade, Integrated Logistics and Areej Vegetarian Oils and Derivatives.
Authorised companies will be granted privileges in facilitating customs clearance across the Sultanate and other Gulf countries, with many of the same countries across the world following similar practices, including a strong and stringent accreditation process.
A shorter customs inspection time will mean happier customers, said Haris Aslam, chief operation officer of e-commerce site Roumaan.com
“Happier customers are the bottom line, because customers now have access to better purchasing options,” he said. “If customers get their orders faster, they will be more motivated to buy more from retailers in the future. We route all of our shipments through Dubai and, on average, it takes about 48 hours to get our shipments, but this is in addition to where our distributors send these goods from.
“Sometimes, our goods come from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Bahrain, which takes about six working days, and that’s not in our control. But now that the transit time is lessened, that means we can shorten the number of days taken for customers,” he added. “Of course, this depends on shipping companies, as well, because some of them send goods really quickly, but overall it should mean faster delivery of important goods.”
Residents in Oman were also happy to hear of this.
“Sometimes, we order goods from Amazon or Souq.com, and they spend a lot of time in transit,” said one local in Oman. “When we ask these companies why it takes so long, they say the items have already been shipped, so this means customs clearances take time.
“Hopefully, this means we can get our items faster.”
“I get many of my items from abroad, and sometimes I have to tell customers there are delays in arrivals, because they take time to finish being processed,” added a store owner. “Now that the customs processes are being sped up, I can complete my orders on time, and this means happier customers.”
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