Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Strategic Trade Act 2010 (STA2010)

Attended the briefing in MITI regarding STA2010 this mornig. MITI is the STA secretariat and custom is the enforcement body.

noted few points:
1. Manufacturer to self-determine if their products falls under STA or not, with reference to the guide provided by MITI.
2. Custom can use the tariff code as guide but not the definate criteria to determine if it is STA item.
3. Custom cannot hold shipment based on the tariff code.

but I am still feel uneasy.

I raise the question to the MITI secretariat: if there is dispute, we self-determine that our products is not STA but Custom said it is STA? The secretariat say that we can refer the case to them and they will study the situation.

Another question and I didn't think of at that time: even we can refer the case to the secretariat, but the shipment is already in the port, detention, storage, special service request, lolo charges, etc etc will be incurred?

To save the problem, we may apply the export permit, register to Dagang Net and submit application to MITI, but all this are cost involve, using Dagang net is not free and we have thousands of products and spare parts, the management is not agree to that, and also falls back to the main issue, how to justify that our product is not STA ? who is the authority to tell us that our product is or is not STA? The secretariat has no definate answer. And back to the question that we have to deternime ourself.

not to forget, for unlisted item, or dual use item (that may be can be use by the terrorist to make mass destructive weapons). if found guilty, imprison 10 years or panalty 10 Million. corporate body 20 million.

what is my position now?

what should I do?

No comments: