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New TradeNet
Singapore Customs
Singapore

The Problem

The new TradeNet® is a one-stop solution for traders to transact all formalities required for the import, export and transshipment of goods into, through and out of Singapore. TradeNet® enables the submission of trade applications in a single form, through a single interface, where the applications are processed via a single platform to Customs and all government agencies involved in the approval of permits and documents for import, export and transhipment of goods. All relevant activities and subsequent follow-ups to the permits and documents such as submission of amendments, cancellations and refunds are performed through the same system. Attachments of supporting documents can also be done through the system. Traders need not access multiple systems and do not submit applications and attachments separately to multiple organisations.

The new TradeNet® aims at providing end-to-end solutioning, beyond just a trade application system. It has self-help features to bring down business costs and is a total revamp of the technology, infrastructure, process workflows and procedures. It addresses the following areas that existed in the past:

For the trade
- Traders paid a higher processing fee for permit applications and updates to their declaration solutions;
- Traders had to apply for more than 1 permit application for certain trade / movement of goods, thus incurring higher costs;
- Traders with small transactions had to either pay for declaration solution costs or outsource their submission of declarations to a 3rd party;
- Traders had to access different systems to submit their refund applications;
- Traders had to approach their declaration solution providers or Customs for assistance to retrieve listings of their permits for tax or other record purposes, thus had to incur retrieval and printing costs charged by vendor (based on market rate) or Customs ($15 per certified permit copy and $105 per listing of permits);
- Traders could attend a 2-day documentation course on permit application requirements and procedures organised by an Association, at a cost of $107;
- TradeNet was not as user friendly due to extensive use of codes and numerous data fields required to be declared by traders;
- Traders were required to obtain a copy of the approved permit from their declaring agents for record purposes or might need to fax copies of permits to 3rd parties for logistics purposes, where the manual handling of documentation was tedious and time consuming; and
- The declaration solution providers were provided with the message specifications only in the EDI format.

For the trade and government agencies
- Traders might be required to fax multiple copies of their supporting documents to support their permit applications, to Customs and other controlling agencies (CA), which consequently involved a time consuming process for CAs to correlate the documents to each permit application;
- The government had maintained separate systems to receive & route the permit applications to different controlling agencies as well as to perform customs-specific checks;
- The government had incurred system maintenance costs but could only recover such costs partially through the permit fees.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
With the total revamp, the new TradeNet® solution is now a truly single window concept with a centralised processing system for permits and related transactions, including updates for amendments, cancellations and refunds; it incorporates a totally new permit structure, new services and functionalities and a new business model based on Public Private Partnership (PPP) tendering and administration process.

All the participants of the system benefited (both tangibly and intangibly) in the following ways:

For the trade
- Traders pay a lower fee of $2.88 per declaration and $0.18 per update (i.e. amendment, cancellation and refunds) – amounting to a yearly saving of more than $3.2 million, computed based on the previous permit fee of $3.30 and $0.40 for amendment and cancellation.
- The new permit structure which allowed traders to apply for a single (2 in 1) permit for the movement of goods such as import for re-export, would result in approximate cost savings of $46,000;
- Traders with lesser transactions can save on declaration solution costs as they can choose to use the web-based declaration solution, provided free by the Government;
- With a single access via the new TradeNet®, traders no longer need to access multiple systems for customs declarations and related transactions, e.g. refunds;
- Traders enjoy free retrievals / downloading of permits / data from system, with annual savings of $120,000 (estimated from the number of requests received previously);
- Traders may access the free elearning software made available by the government, which has an interactive guide on scenarios and application types, to better understand the requirements of the permit applications;
- New TradeNet® has a more user-friendly and simplified permit structure, with the type of permit applications, previously identified by codes, replaced by more intuitive terminology. With the 12% reduction in the number of data fields to be declared from 277 data fields to 244 data fields, traders, particularly the new entrants, enjoyed cost and time savings due to shorter learning curves;
- With the facility to receive an electronic copy of permit declared by their agents and also an option to forward electronically the permits to any registered 3rd parties, traders not only save on time and costs to track and fax permits but also support environment protection by going on paperless;
- Release of the message specifications in both EDI and XML format had facilitated the work of the declaration solution providers with their customers (traders) on the various types and level of integration for the submissions of permit applications. Traders could integrate their internal systems with the declaration solutions to enable them to seamlessly obtain data from their in-house system and hence reduce the amount of data to be re-keyed into the permit applications.

For the trade and government agencies
- The feature to attach the supporting documents electronically together with permit application led to time savings for both traders and agencies; and
- Under the PPP, the vendor will bear most of the system development and full system maintenance costs.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Customs is the lead agency for the initiative. The revamp of the system and the changes have leveraged on technological developments, streamlined procedures and processes and new functionalities etc. Customs proactively engaged the Private and Public sectors for feedback and sought inputs from the various sectors:
(1) trading community: through regular surveys, feedback from emails and dialogues;
(2) within Customs: through brain storming sessions and suggestions;
(3) other government agencies participating in the system: through day-to-day interactions;
(4) vendors such as the network operator through the Public Private Partnership tendering process and from declaration solution providers offering solutions to the trade.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Customs needs to strategise and ensure that the harnessing of the ICT through an efficient and effective trade documentation system will facilitate and make trade easy. The TradeNet® System has been implemented since 1989. Customs, as the lead agency and the champion of the system, has always sought to keep abreast of technology developments in terms of hardware and software improvements as well as the continuous review of procedures and processes to improve efficiencies through time and cost savings; provides high-quality services, new and innovative functionalities to the trade and the agencies participating in the system. Other than these objectives for the initiative, there was also a need to synergise the processing for trade and customs requirements through close integrations with other government agencies.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The key steps could be classified in 3 chronological stages as follows:

Stage 1
(a) detailed planning for the whole initiative including the timeframe of major key milestones in consultation with the various stakeholders
(b) documentation of requirements and specifications (involvement of all the participants of the system including Customs, other government agencies and trade)
(c) tendering through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Model with market feedback

Stage 2
(a) education / outreach (training sessions provided internally for Customs Officers and other government agencies, including the port and airport authorities and external training conducted for the trade and associations)
(b) system testing
(c) publicity (system down time expected for data migration and system implementation are communicated to all via circulars, emails and published on website and also in media)
(d) contingency plans

Stage 3
(a) implementation including data migration and system cut over
(b) communicating regular update of system downtime to the trade (through news media, circulars, dedicated micro-website), advices on cargo clearance to avoid unnecessary delay, contingency plan for urgent and last minute shipments
(c) provision of 24 -hour helpdesk support during the cutover and implementation stages
(d) post-implementation monitoring and review

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles, or rather challenges, for the implementation of the new system were:
(a) the need to ensure and coordinate that the requirements of the trade, as well as that of Customs and other government agencies, were met due to the many stakeholders and participants of the system
(b) the huge magnitude of changes to the infrastructure, the processing system and procedures need to be managed properly
(c) to prepare the trade of the changes especially companies with integrated systems and solutions
(d) the need to ensure minimal disruptions to trade and port/airport operations during the migration and implementation stages of the new system


The strategies to overcome the above were:
(a) A clear management structure and plan for:
(i) Appointment of lead agency
(ii) Establishment of committees and work groups assigned with specific roles;
(iii) Involvement of experienced officers, including prompt assessment of project risk and quick decision-making at each critical point of the developmental phases.
(iv) Chart the key checkpoints
(v) Time line of all the activities
(b) Detailed and robust testing; including stress testing
(c) Phased-in approach for certain activities and the implementation for certain types of declarations in view of high project risk
(d) Engagement of critical stake holders from the beginning, including early signals of the impending changes
(e) Good Contingency plan, as well as the setting up of a Central Command and Control Centre as well as the provision of helpdesk support during critical periods to ensure continuity of business flow
(f) To conduct in advance, dialogue sessions, trainings, outreach conducted to update the trade on the overall implementation plan with specific details provided at each critical phase.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The resources required by Customs and the other agencies were mainly human resources, required intensively for mobilisation, planning, User Acceptance Testing, implementation, provision of trainings, call centre support, command centre operations and follow-up reviews. This was in addition to the financial resources incurred by the agencies to change their internal systems such as the interfaces with the new system in terms of format and data structure etc.

The new system which involved a total revamp of not just the infrastructure, but also the processing work flows and rules was tendered out in the format of PPP and managed by the authority on an outcome-based approach. The appointed vendor built the infrastructure, incorporated the necessary technology, implemented the technical rules such as work flows etc and maintained the system, including contingency planning and systems to meet the specified requirements and performance based on the desired outcome stated by the government. For example, a certain high percentage of permits must be processed within a specific timeframe. The costs for processing and routing of the declaration messages would be recovered by the operator through their charges to the users.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
After the implementation of the initiative, the totally revamped and new TradeNet® System, Singapore Customs, as the lead agency, together with the appointed vendor, continued to keep track of the operations, maintenance and the performance of the systems through reports, online checks and various feedback from trade and other participating government agencies through multiple channels such as emails, dialogues, meetings and surveys.

The initiative has resulted in savings and Customs has also received positive feedback from the trade and industry. It was a good initiative that continues to promote the use of ICT to harness technology with a single window for trade to submit declarations to all concerned authorities through a single interface, a single process and a single form to facilitate and make trade easy.

The experience of implementing this initiative was shared not only locally but also internationally with other countries such as a recent sharing at the APEC Data Harmonisation Workshop in end Oct 08 with other APEC members, ASEAN Customs forum on single window and with the various foreign Customs and trade delegations during their visits.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The key elements were detailed in part c above but we would like to emphasize especially on 2 of them i.e. the need for detailed planning and early involvement and engagement of the stakeholders and participants.

The key element that made the initial success was the detailed planning which was necessary as the initiative entailed a total revamp of the system not only in terms of technology but also processes and procedures. As this is a national system that has a huge impact on trade flow should the implementation fail to proceed smoothly, much thoughts and deliberations were put in place to mitigate the project risks by taking into consideration the prolonged blackout duration, peak hours of traffic movements at the port/airport, regular communications to the trade, accessibility and manpower mobilization as well as deployment to potentially higher risk sectors.

The other key element was the early involvement and engagement of the stakeholders and participants i.e. the internal Customs users, trade and other government agencies; the involvement was not just to gather their feedback but also to garner their support and prepare them for the changes. They would also in turn need to make plans for any changes to their internal systems, in preparation of the new system especially for the trade communities who have integrated solutions and systems. They would also need to be involved in the User Acceptance Testing of the new systems. The training sessions and communication provided to all concerned had to be complete and clear so that they could be ready during the data migration and implementation and to ensure minimal disruptions to trade flows during these critical periods.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Singapore Customs
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Karen Lim
Title:   Head(Procedures & Processing Branch)  
Telephone/ Fax:   63552176
Institution's / Project's Website:   63379956
E-mail:   customs_tradenet@customs.gov.sg  
Address:   55 Newton Road, #09-01, Revenue House
Postal Code:   307987
City:   Singapore
State/Province:   Singapore
Country:   Singapore

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