Chittagong Bureau :
National Board of Revenue (NBR) will formulate a policy for realising freight forwarding charge (FFC) on delivery of consignments from Chittagong Seaport in private sector by the end by March 30 next. After formulation of new FFC, the service providing organizations in port will be barred to realize the FFC as their own discretion.
At present Freight Forwarders agents in port are not maintaining any proper policy relating to realization of FFC. This was disclosed by the Member of NBR (Customs) Md. Fariduddin while addressing in meeting of the officials of customs, port and the representatives of port users and port service providing organizations on Sunday at Customs auditorium. NBR member said, a 3-day long workshop of the port users will be held in Dhaka from February 17 next and following the decisions of the workshop, the FFC policy will be finalized by March 30 next. International laws relating to freight charges in other ports of the world will get priority in formulating the FFC policy, he added.
Mentionable that Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association enhanced FFC for obtaining clearance of consignment delivery from February 1 last, which was protested by BGMEA. Following the protest of BGMEA, meeting of the port users was held on Sunday last. Also to mention here that ICD depot owners increased FFC twice from January 1 last two times. Pending finalization of the FFC policy, NBR called Freight Forwarder Agents to suspend their enhanced freight charges and the Freight Forwarders Agents agreed to suspend realization of enhanced freight charge till new policy enacted, sources said.
