NBR to subscribe to global commodity price database

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is set to procure a three-year subscription to S&P Global Platts, a global provider of commodity price assessments and market data, to help customs officials verify the declared prices of imported goods.

The Ministry of Finance has recently approved the procurement at a cost of around Tk 8 crore, according to revenue officials familiar with the matter.

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The subscription is being procured through the Direct Purchase Method (DPM) and is likely to be purchased within this week, several members of the purchase committee told The Daily Star.

The database will provide international market prices for thousands of commodities, allowing the NBR to compare importers’ declared values with prevailing prices when determining customs values.

Officials said the board had contacted several other international platforms, including the London Metal Exchange (LME), Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) and ICIS, before settling on Platts.

The other platforms do not provide data covering all types of products, while Platts offers price assessments across a broader range of commodities, they said.

“We negotiated with Platts several times before finalising the price,” a member of the purchase committee said on condition of anonymity.

The subscription will provide access to data on various products, while the NBR will receive at least 20-30 user IDs, allowing officials of customs houses across the country to access the platform.

The move follows a meeting on customs valuation held at Chattogram port on August 11 in the presence of Finance and Planning Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury.

At the meeting, Chattogram Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) President Mohammed Amirul Haque said customs officials sometimes assess imported goods at values higher than their actual purchase or invoice prices.

He cited plastic chips as an example, saying importers purchased the product at $8,000-$9,000 per tonne, while customs assessed its value at $12,000 per tonne for calculating duties and taxes.

Other businesses at the meeting also complained that higher customs valuations than their actual purchase prices were increasing import costs and putting additional pressure on consumers.

Following the meeting, the finance minister instructed the NBR chairman and the commissioner of Chattogram Customs House to take steps on the issue by September.

Md Mahbubur Rahman, commissioner of Chattogram Customs House, told The Daily Star that customs officials already use information from international price platforms and websites in some cases to assess imported goods.

“But as we do not have subscriptions, we do not have full access to such information and cannot properly verify the data provided by importers,” he said.

“Having access to international price databases will make it easier to verify the declared values submitted by importers and assess customs value based on prevailing market prices,” Mahbubur said.

Ahmedur Reza Chowdhury, deputy commissioner of Chattogram Customs House and a member of the purchase committee, said the database also provides country- and region-specific market data.

“If data for a particular country is not available, we can consider data from a neighbouring or comparable market. Under the customs valuation rules, such information can be useful in determining the value of identical or similar goods from the same or comparable regions,” he said.

Platts publishes daily commodity price assessments and benchmarks covering markets such as crude oil, refined fuels, gas, LNG, chemicals, petrochemicals, fertilisers, agriculture, metals and shipping. S&P Global says its Platts business publishes more than 15,000 commodity prices daily across these markets.

The proposed subscription comes amid longstanding complaints from importers that customs authorities sometimes determine the assessable value of goods above their actual transaction or invoice prices, said CCCI President Haque.

Customs officials, however, said the database would also help identify cases of under-invoicing.