Total collections of the Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) reached P29.3 billion in March 2014, an increase of 34% year-on-year, on the back of an increase in the volume of goods imported as well as on-going systemic and process reforms, particularly in valuation.
Based on the report of the Bureau of the Treasury, revenues generated by the BOC in March were derived purely from cash collection.
For the first quarter of 2014, total collections by the BOC reached P86.5 billion, up 26% from the same period last year. The uptick was attributed to an increase in the volume of goods imported, improvements in valuation of imported items and a slight increase in the number of working days, which totaled 63 versus 61 in the same period last year.
Month-on-month cash collections have also improved from 19.2% in November 2013 to 34.4% in March 2014, bringing the average growth rate for the past five months to 23.24%, way above the 4.76% average cash collection growth rate from January to October 2013, as efficiency increased following the implementation of various changes in valuation of goods, processing of import documents, as well as intensified enforcement of Alert Orders and policies on filing of import entries.
Customs Commissioner John P. Sevilla has said that far more aggressive reforms will be implemented over the next 15 months. These include the re-imposition of pre-shipment inspection for all formal entry cargo, centralized assessment service and a single set of reference values for major commodities.
