XN000022-1996-07-01 — Page 21

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Revised trade licences fees and charges effective on July 5

The Trade Department reminded today (Monday) that revised fees and charges in respect of applications for textile licences, certificates of origin and other trade documents and related services would come into effect on July 5.

Effective on the same day will be a new scale of subscription fees for Trade Notices and Circulars, which have been revised as a result of a recent review.

The revised annual fee for factory registration will, however, come into force on August 1 while those for Generalised Preference Certificates and Certificates of Origin will be effective as from January 2 next year.

A spokesman for the Trade Department explained that the revision of fees and charges under the Import and Export (Fees) (Amendment) Regulation 1996 was necessary to recover the cost.

He said: "It is Government policy that the fees and charges should recover the full cost of providing a service and that a comprehensive costing exercise should be conducted once every four years.

"In the interim years, fee reviews are conducted annually to reflect inflation as measured by the movement of the Government Consumption Expenditure Deflator. The revised fees and charges are determined in line with this policy."

The spokesman said the measure of inflation for Government expenditure had worked out to be nine per cent this year and the revised fees were arrived at by applying the nine per cent factor with some of the figures rounded up or down for the convenience of collection or affixing stamps with appropriate denominations.

The revised fees and charges to be implemented with effect from July 5, 1996 (unless otherwise specified) are as follows:-

Fees

Type of Application

Current

Revised

Application for issue of textiles export licence - non-restrained items (Form 4)

$48

$52

Application for issue of textiles export licence - restrained items (Form 5)

$185

$202