Problems relating to Trade and Investment on Saudi Arabia
9. Restrictive export/import trade, duty, and customs clearance |
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Issue |
Issue details |
Requests |
Reference |
| (1) Vexatiously Complex Pre-Shipment Customs Clearance Inspection Based on the Saudi Specifications | - GOSA is engaged in standardisation of products in each category to facilitate quality inspection. As regards steel products, it promotes standardisation of major items. GOSA conducts customs inspection on bar steel and bar in coil steel under the Saudi specifications. - Upon customs clearance, pre-shipment inspection certificate issued by a third party institution is required (SASO in Saudi, and KUSO in Kuwait). However, it is extremely costly and changes to inspection details frequently occur. |
- It is requested that GOSA repeals customs inspection or streamlines the procedure. - It is requested that GOJ approaches the countries subject to pre-shipment inspection to request to repeal it as only a few countries in the world is doing that. |
- Customs legislations |
| (Action) - GOSA requires conformity to the Saudi Arabian Standards Organization (SASO) Mandatory Certification on the products such as metal works, automotive vehicles, electric/electronic products, included in the List of Items Subject to Mandatory Certification identified under Annex H of WTO document WT/ACC/SAU/61. (Ref: Saudi Arabian Standards Organization (SASO) (http://www.saso.gov.sa/en/pages/default.aspx)) (Ref: http://www.saso.gov.sa/en/standards/Pages/default.aspx) - GOSA requires Certification of Conformity on virtually all consumer goods exported to SA. |
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| (2) Engraved marking requirement of Country of Origin on the Body of Each Export Product | - GOSA mandates country of origin (COO) marking to be painted on each piece of steel products imported into SA and sold by dealers to end users. Since 1 February 2009, under Saudi Arabia customs' directive, GOSA has tightened its certificate of origin marking requirement, by provision of print or stamp, on the external packaging (cartons, etc.) of all goods destined to Saudi Arabia. - Express marking of country of origin (COO) is mandatory for all cargoes only imported into Saudi Arabia and South Korea. |
- It is requested that GOSA repeals or simplifies the COO marking requirement or streamlines the procedure. - While many countries accepts COO labeled on the outer package, only Saudi Arabia and South Korea requires COO marked by die-stamping, or engraving on the product itself. It is requested that GOSA likewise follow suit of the rest of the countries in regard to its COO marking requirement. |
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| (3) Physical Inspection upon Import Customs Clearance by Opening Containers | - At the container yard, a substantial rate (about 30%) of containers was opened for inspection. It took much time and substantial cost for shippers; numerous damages were caused upon reloading cargoes back to containers. | - It is requested that GOJ approaches GOSA for rectifying the inspection rate to a level in line with other countries, as the inspection rate is excessively too high. | - Customs legislations |
| (4) Radiation Inspection | - GOSA requires radiation inspection for each vessel from Japan, which causes the quite unnecessary, substantial cost to Japanese affiliated enterprises. | - It is requested that GOSA removes the burden for radiation inspection. | - Import Law of Saudi Arabia |
| (5) Compulsory Acquisition of Consular Legalisation on Shipping Documents | - GOSA requires consular legalisation on documents for trade such as invoices, which causes added costs and a longer lead time. | - Only a few countries in the world now require consular legalisation. It is requested that GOJ sounds out the respective subject countries for removal of this requirement. | - Customs legislations |
| (6) Unavailability of Shipment by Boat | - Due to the risk of loss, personal cargoes in small quantity cannot be shipped by sea in substance. | ||
| (7) Long-term Backlog of Import Customs Clearance at Riyadh's Dry Port | - Extreme congestions prevail on customs clearance at riyadh's dry port with the arriving cargoes arriving by the inexpensive train transport from Dammam. In effect, a firm experienced a long-term backlog of cargoes pending customs clearance in 2012, when it changed to a new team of customs broker / stevedore (Chinese + local enterprises), due to the change in the workers' sponsorship. | - It is requested that GOSA supervises and directs the customs clearance by new Stevedore enterprises that function in practice, in order to avoid the backlog in import customs clearance. | |
| (8) Uniform Tariff in GCC-6 | - For protecting the domestic mills, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, & UAE (GCC-6) used to levy high tariff rates on items that can be manufactured domestically in GCC-6. However, since 2005 when GCC-6's accession to WTO, the tariff rate has been reduced to the uniform 5%. | ||
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