ORAL QUESTION WITH DEBATE ON MEASURES PROHIBITING TRANSHIPMENT OF GOODS AT BORDERS DURING IMPORTATION
The Congolese Government, through the Minister of Commerce, has never prohibited transshipment which is recognized by the texts which govern the World Trade Organization-WTO and Congolese laws including the customs code in article 182, because it is an operation of transporting goods from the point of embarkation to the destination which is the Democratic Republic of Congo with the change in the mode of transport, but without modifying the content.
Rather, it is the transshipment not supervised by customs which causes the splitting which consists of cutting up the goods in order to evade the payment of customs duties which is prohibited by the texts of the WTO and the laws of the country, a phenomenon which causes the public treasury to bleed, for example in 2024, the splitting caused the DRC to lose 3.9 billion US dollars.
Clarification made this Wednesday by the Minister of Foreign Trade, Julien Paluku in front of the national representation by responding educationally to the oral question with debate on the measures prohibiting the transshipment of goods at the borders during importation addressed to him by the National Deputy Katembo Kambere Thaddée, but
also to the various concerns of the elected representatives of the people during the debate which followed under the leadership of the President of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe.
The splitting of goods which takes place in neighboring countries negatively competes with the economic operator who followed the legal route so that these goods are more expensive than those of economic operators who go through circuitous routes, which causes fraud, hence the fight against operation will help to support the country's economy added the Minister of Foreign Trade.
On this occasion, he congratulated the Office of the lower house of parliament and the author of this oral question for this accountability exercise which allowed him to shed light on the national representation, economic operators and the Congolese population on the functioning of his ministry and the various achievements including the safeguarding of industry with temporary restriction measures on the importation of certain products, the launch of the Commercial Regime
Simplified-RECOS which grants several facilities to small cross-border traders and the signing of an interministerial Commerce-Finance decree implementing the Simplified Commercial Regime-RECOS
The Congolese Government endorses the recommendations of the National Assembly, including the modification of the commercial code and the law which sets the nomenclature of taxes and fees to fight against toxic taxes which suffocate economic operators but also the dematerialization of the Comprehensive Single Window for Foreign Trade -
SEGUCE-RDC concluded this member of the Government Judith Suminwa who materializes the vision of the Head of State, Félix Tshisekedi in the Commerce sector which is the lever of economic growth of the DRC.
In his intervention, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Vital Kamerhe qualified the response of the Minister of Commerce as a great lesson, because it has just strengthened the capacities of the people's elected representatives in matters of international trade.
