The Royal Malaysian Customs Department is confident of achieving the target of collecting additional RM3 billion in Goods and Services Tax (GST) this year through the Customs Blue Ocean Strategy which stressed on compliance through education.

Its Deputy Director-General (Customs and GST), Datuk Zulkifli Yahya, said the target was based on the additional collection of RM1 billion collected during the first four months after the Ops CBOS was implemented on Sept 1 last year.

"The approach we used before this was in the form of enforcement which was less effective. This time around, the Customs has changed it strategy to be more client-friendly and based on education in the effort to educate businessmen who are still confused and do not have a full understanding of the GST.

"There are businessmen who still don't understand the GST and some who have not paid it properly. In fact, some declared a lower GST than the fixed rate, while there are some who collected the GST, but did not pay to the department," he told reporters after the launch of Ops CBOS here on Monday.

-- BERNAMA