Paperless Customs: Ferrari expectations with a Morris Minor configuration

The launch of Customs Paperless Declaration from 1 October is undoubtedly a welcome step towards digitalisation and trade facilitation. However, digitising the declaration alone will not automatically deliver faster Customs clearance

The launch of Customs Paperless Declaration from 1 October is undoubtedly a welcome step towards digitalisation and trade facilitation. However, digitising the declaration alone will not automatically deliver faster Customs clearance.

Expecting a dramatic improvement in clearance speed under the present conditions is like expecting Ferrari performance from a Morris Minor configuration.

The real bottleneck is not merely the absence of paper. It is the entire clearance ecosystem—the limitations of the existing ASYCUDA World system, excessive regulatory interventions by Other Government Agencies (OGAs), multiple approvals, physical examinations, manual interventions, fragmented processes and institutional constraints.

If these underlying constraints remain unchanged, there is a real risk that the new paperless system could become another “copy-and-paste road show”—where an old, complex clearance process is simply transferred onto a digital screen without fundamentally changing the process itself.

Sri Lanka does not need a digital version of the existing Customs process.

Sri Lanka needs a fundamentally redesigned clearance process powered by digital Customs.

Paperless is the beginning—not the destination

Paperless does not automatically mean faster

A genuinely paperless Customs environment should eliminate unnecessary physical movement, repeated document submissions, manual endorsements, avoidable approvals and waiting time.

Digitising a slow process does not make the process fast.

It only makes the slow process digital.

What Sri Lanka needs is not simply paperless Customs, but process-less Customs where unnecessary processes are removed.

If the objective is genuine trade facilitation, the 1 October launch should be accompanied by a clear programme to:

• simplify the Customs declaration and approval workflow;
• address the functional limitations of ASYCUDA World;
• reduce unnecessary physical examinations through effective risk management;
• integrate OGA approvals into a truly coordinated digital platform;
• eliminate repetitive document submissions and physical endorsements;
• enable pre-arrival processing and approvals;
• provide adequate digital document-upload capacity;
• establish clear service-level timelines for Customs and OGAs;
• eliminate the need for Customs brokers to physically chase files, officers and approvals; and
• measure success by actual reduction in cargo dwell time, rather than merely the number of declarations submitted electronically.

The real bottleneck is not merely the absence of paper. It is the entire clearance ecosystem—the limitations of the existing ASYCUDA World system, excessive regulatory interventions by Other Government Agencies (OGAs), multiple approvals, physical examinations, manual interventions, fragmented processes and institutional constraints

The real test begins on 1 October

The success of Paperless Customs should therefore not be measured by “How many Customs declarations are filed electronically?”

The real question is:

 “How much faster does an import container move from vessel arrival to Customs release?”

If the answer is not significantly faster, then we have not achieved trade facilitation—we have simply digitised bureaucracy.

Sri Lanka does not need a digital version of the existing Customs process.

Sri Lanka needs a fundamentally redesigned clearance process powered by digital Customs.

Paperless is the beginning—not the destination.

(The author is the President, Customs House Agents and Traders Association)