Minutes of AGM held at HQS Wellington on Thursday 11th March 2010

Richard Wade took the chair in the absence of Richard Cotter. He welcomed the delegates. There being no matters arising from the 2009 AGM minutes, these were duly agreed.

Financial Update

Corinne Nabavi resigned as Treasurer in October 2009 and as yet there was no replacement so Richard Wade presented the 2009 Accounts and the 2010 Budget. ACITA had made a loss of around £2000 which was mainly due to the costs of the IEE, Savoy Place increasing, hence the venue moving to HQS Wellington which was approximately £2000 cheaper. A question was asked about the cost of the regional meetings and a request for more members to host more of the meetings in order to keep the costs down. It was still hoped to get an Eastern Regional meeting up and running and Richard Cotter would advise a date in April/May. One member had opted not to renew and another had gone into Administration. However there had already been three new members in 2010: Flowserve Corporation; Wesco Aircraft and Uniserve Holdings with 6 more companies expressing interest in joining. Members were asked to continue promoting the benefits of ACITA membership to their own networking groups.

Management Committee Members

It is customary for 1/3rd of the management committee to stand down and Corinne Nabavi, Paul White and Richard Wade were due to step down. Corinne and Richard were willing to be re-elected. The meeting agreed to their re-election. It was noted that Paul had been involved with ACITA since its inception some 30 years ago and Richard thanked him for his long service. Robert Hina of 3M was nominated to the management committee.

The AGM was closed and Richard Wade opened the first 2010 National meeting in a new venue aboard HQS Wellington.

Minutes of National Meeting held on 11 March 2010

1. ECS and ICS – Dave Morgan and Lee Teager, HMRC (see presentation)

Dave confirmed that ECS had been fully operational for nine months now and although he had prepared a short presentation a question and answer session followed. There were concerns about the volumes of undischarged goods. DM advised that the electronic Customs Group met monthly to discuss clearance problems. The Commission was holding a workshop in May for members to discuss any concerns. Generally paperwork was still catching up with the electronic system. If any ACITA members are experiencing problems with goods not being cleared promptly in certain countries, please advise the Secretariat who will forward to Dave Morgan. The deadline for discharge of documents is 150 days but most goods cleared in around 45 days. Poland were consistently asking for more information. This problem should be sorted out soon. HMRC will do the risk assessment at the first port/airport of entry. The details of any goods coming by sea have to be notified 24 hours before shipping so risk checks can be carried out and if there is a problem HMRC can stop the goods from being loaded. The EU will have the same risk rules as UK. There are still changes to be made to ICS/ECS/NTCS. MCCIP to be implemented in 2013. Carriers don’t have to be AEO approved. A carrier identifies a freight forwarder. Currently there are 13 countries sending declarations. November 2010 is the date for UK to do so. TPVS (Third Party Valuation System) will be available from 29 April 2010 – HMRC want traders to start testing this system asap. A test pack is available from the end of March. Currently there is a big debate ongoing between the Goods Description -v- Commodity Code (see DM’s slides). There are EU guidelines on the HMRC web site or any queries can be directed to the HMRC help line.

2. General Discussion on CFSP re-applications and HMRC proposed deadline of 30th June 2010 – Richard Cotter

In Richard’s absence, Neil Bird of Damco kindly offered to lead the discussion on CFSP. Existing CFSP’s have to re-apply for AEO status by 30th June 2010 – general feeling is - are they being forced into it? Some members felt that the amount of effort involved in getting AEO did not reap the benefits, although members who had achieved the status said it had improved their business. There still seems to be some inconsistencies, even by HMRC personnel, as to whether CFSP should be re-applied for before AEO or vice versa. This question would be raised by both the SMT and ACITA representative at the JCCC meeting next week. Richard Wade thanked the speakers and the meeting broke for lunch.

Afternoon Session

3. General discussion on container capacity proposed by Richard Cotter

Richard Wade enquired whether any members had a similar concern on container capacity. Nobody did, so this item was not discussed.

4. Blueprint update – David Hesketh, HMRC (see presentation)

David updated the meeting on the Blueprint and how it ties in with MCCIP, generally making the customs process simpler. The Supply Chain uses data currently available to advise what is in a container, quantities etc. which will speed up the process. The MCC will provide electronic procedures and do away with traditional methods of recording data. The Integrity Project providing the pipeline concept and consignment data will be available by mid 2010. Traders will drive the implementation not HMRC.

5. MCCIP Update – Peter Starling, HMRC (see presentation)

The latest version of MCCIP is the 3rd draft. The overall process has been agreed for 2015 not 2013 for Centralised Clearance to allow more time for companies to get their systems in place. Pete has a document containing the industry views on MCCIP which can be viewed by members if anyone wants to add comments. The EU Commission have been pushed to provide a working plan at a meeting on 4 May. Pete ran through the main topics of Centralised clearance, Self Assessment, Temporary Storage, Guarantees for duty, Single Transport Contract, Trader’s right to be heard and Valuation. Some members felt that the new duty regulations would not work. Richard Wade thanked David and Peter for their informative presentations. Some general questions were raised by members:

1. If other members found that incorrect claims had been made on Exports – they were now able to put in a claim to HMRC.

2. There were problems with Non-preferential Origins which Corinne Nabavi will raise at the next JCCC sub-group meeting.

There being no further questions, Richard Wade thanked the members and speakers and closed the meeting.