A COMPANY partly-owned by Taiwanese investors has been formally declared as the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) first-value added service provider, allowing it to assist government in facilitating imports and exports.

In a text message to BusinessMirror, Francis O. Lopez, president of Intercommerce Network Service (INS), confirmed that the customs bureau has already given the company its preliminary accreditation. The endorsement came less than two days after the Customs’ Value Added Service Provider (VASP) accreditation committee sent the company’s papers to the Customs Commissioner for approval.

Last month, INS underwent live testing, the last process of the technical evaluation which will determine whether the software and hardware infrastructure of the VASP will be harmonious with the BOC’s AsycudaWorld’s operating system, among others.

The testing involved lodgment of import declarations for consumption and warehousing.

The BOC said three remaining VASP applicants—Cargo Data Exchange Center Inc., Crimson Logic Philippines, and e-Konek Pilipinas—will also undergo live testing in the next few months.

Under Customs Memorandum Order 19-2007, which was released last week, the bureau will provide the necessary gateway infrastructure and telecommunications facilities to enable electronic lodgment of import entries via the Internet through the use of VASP’s front-end systems.

Companies such as INS will be responsible for the installation of the necessary computer applications on the Internet at importers’ offices which will enable importers to encode and transmit import entries and receive the corresponding responses from the agency’s e-Customs System via the BOC-VASP Gateway.

Every service provider will have to pay a P200,000 accreditation fee, post P5-million performance bond, and the sign the Service Level Undertaking.

The said undertaking, which was already revised, was signed by INS last week.

According to a customs official, the new agreement’s provisions on fines and penalties were relaxed, providing some leeway to INS if its systems fail owing to unavoidable factors.

Meanwhile, INS is headed by Francis Roman O. Lopez and two Taiwanese investors Charles Wang and FS Wang. Other incorporators include Laura R. Gison, Jesus M. Disini Jr., Alexander F. de Guzman, Jeanette J. Lopez and Paul Lazaro.

A COMPANY partly-owned by Taiwanese investors has been formally declared as the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) first-value added service provider, allowing it to assist government in facilitating imports and exports.

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