New Labuan customs ruling postponed

The full enforcement on customs regulations and policy to impose a strict rule on the outflow of Labuan-registered vehicle to the mainland had been postponed to Nov 1.

Confirming this, Labuan Member of Parliament Datuk Rozman Isli said the postponement of the enforcement of the ruling from Aug 1 was decided after taking into consideration various views from Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties, chambers of commerce, community leaders and the people of Labuan.

“The postponement was decided today after our meeting with the Second Finance Minister Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani in Kuala Lumpur,” he told Bernama today.

Rozman said the implementation of the customs ruling would see certain adjustments from its early schedules which hopefully would not burden the Labuan folks and would be discussed in details with the Ministry of Finance and customs officials.

“We have about three months to ‘iron out’ the whole structure of the customs ruling including the new schedule of the bond required by customs. Everything about the ruling is still undecided and to be decided after discussion with MOF (Ministry of Finance) and customs in detail. Nevertheless, if possible, we want the current customs policy and ruling to remain unchanged,” he said.

The new ruling which requires Labuan-registered vehicle owners to deposit certain percentage of bond (amounting to several thousand ringgit - based on the engine capacity) before driving out their vehicles to the mainland, was originally aimed at addressing the unlawful act of certain vehicles owners who failed to return their vehicles to Labuan after the completion of the annual 90-day period.

The ruling which was discussed in a dialogue last week between customs officials and the chambers of commerce, politicians, business community leaders, hotel managements and members of the public has raised objections and the issue had since been forwarded to MP Labuan and MOF for a thorough study.

The dialogue also discussed on the limitation of the more than 50 duty-free-shops to only 10 premises, which also aimed at curbing the smuggling activities.

Labuan chambers of commerce of the Malay Traders and Industrialists Association of Malaysia (Perdasama), Labuan Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Labuan Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) have voiced their argument to the authorities, MP Labuan and MOF.

They said the ruling if implemented would only impede the development of the tourism sector as lesser visitors would visit the island.

Perdasama Labuan president Suwardy Zainuddin said the government’s policy was supposed to ease the burden of the people and to help improve their well-being.