Improving Customs Transit Systems
In the Islamic Countries
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of Transit (if any); this may not happen at all or may happen several times. The consignment
arrives at an Office of Transit where the processing of border crossing will be completed.
Afterward, the consignment leaves either to the next Office of Transit or to its final destination.
Normally, the consignment arrives at the destination, and the goods are presented to the Office
of Destination, which processes the arrival. Once the arrival processing is complete, the Office of
Departure closes the movement. In the case the Office of Departure does not receive any
feedback about the arrival of the movement within the expected period, an inquiry procedure is
started. Depending on the result of the inquiry, taxes and duties might be collected through the
recovery procedure. At the end of the transit procedure, the movement is closed.
During the transit movement, the concerned Customs Offices and Traders exchange data
through standard messages. The NCTS messages are assigned identification numbers which all
start with IE and then a two or three-digit number (e.g., a transit declaration is initiated by
message IE15). Within these IE messages, there are ‘data groups’ consisting of various fields of
data. Each data group and each field has certain characteristics, for example, whether it is alpha
or numeric, a number of characters, whether its completion is mandatory (M), optional (O) or
dependent on some conditions (D).
The automated NCTS processing occurs for most movements of traders (i.e., Consignors and
Consignees), but it can only happen under these strict conditions:
 At departure:
 the declaration is formally valid; and
 the declaration is submitted within the time agreed for that purpose; and
 the guarantee is valid; and
 the risk analysis does not propose to control the goods and/or documents; and
 the verification of data indicates no problems.
 At destination:
 the notification is submitted within the hours agreed for that purpose; and
 the risk analysis does not propose to control the consignment; and
 the unloading remarks indicate no problems.
 Closure:
 no discrepancies are reported72.
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interface-spec.pdf