KARACHI: Director General Customs Valuation Zulfikar Ali Chaudry has upheld the Valuation Ruling No.1450/2020 maintaining the said Valuation Ruling has been issued in accordance with the provisions of law and does not suffer from any legal or procedural infirmities.
M/s Butt Trading Co. and others had approached Director General Customs Valuation seeking revision of Valuation Ruling No. 1450/2020 for being on higher side and also against the principles laid down by superior courts.
During the course of hearing, the petitioners contended that customs values have been increased illegally and unlawfully from $1.80/KG for PVC Coated Fabric to $2.55/Kg to the extent of 41%, the values of PU Coated Fabric Artificial Leather Woven has been enhanced from $3.05/Kg to $3.95/KG, which is around 30% increase from pervious VR.
Further, the value of PU Fabric Artificial Leather Non Woven has been enhanced from $3.15/Kg to $4.50/KG to the extent of 43%. They also argued that the values of the basic raw materials have declined internationally since the above items are petroleum based products.
The petitioners contended that valuation methods were not followed in their sequential order.
The petitioners further contended that the department has not conducted any proper market survey to arrive at customs values and the department has increased the value of the impugned goods exorbitantly as compared to the previous valuation ruling.
The department however vehemently defended its position and submitted that the Customs values of PU/PVC coated fabric, textile lining material fabric and textile invisible coated lining material fabric were earlier determined vide Valuation Ruling Nos. 978/2016. The Valuation Rulings were old and values of fabric, both in international and local markets, had shown varying trends.
Moreover, the EDE data of Chinese Exports to Pakistan also indicated variations in values of Chinese exports values viz-a-viz Pakistan import values of fabric. Therefore, an exercise was undertaken by Directorate General to determine the values of subject goods accordingly.
The department further stated that sufficient hearing opportunities were given to stakeholders and meetings were conducted. All participants were requested to submit relevant import documents. Few of the appellants submitted documents which were examined but they were not supportive to their contentions to arrive at any customs values.
The documents were incomplete and could not substantiate the arguments of importers.
Director General Zulfikar Chaudry observed after listening to the arguments of both the parties and perusal of the case record, it is evident that the valuation department had duly taken the stakeholders on board while issuing the impugned valuation ruling and valuation methods were properly followed.
The petitioners were given sufficient time and opportunity to give their inputs including documentary proof/evidence to substantiate their transaction values but they failed to provide any such proof or fact in support of their contentions. During the course of revision proceedings, the Chinese Export Data (EDE) viz-a-viz Pakistan imports data was scrutinized which showed massive under-invoicing in the import values of impugned goods.
Therefore, the petitioners have failed to prove their case on the basis of record submitted by them since the EDE Data provided by the Chinese Government under bilateral agreement in accordance with Section 25AA of the Customs Act.1969, effectively nullifies their stance. Therefore, it is concluded that the valuation ruling has been issued in accordance with the provisions of law and does not suffer from any legal or procedural infirmities. In view of the foregoing, the valuation ruling is upheld.