KCS: "From the Perspective of Service Demanders, Not Providers... On-Site Regulatory Improvements"

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Customs Service is improving corporate regulations through the Regulatory Government Burden of Proof System. The core idea is to examine the necessity of regulations from the perspective of the demand side, not the supplier of customs administrative services, and decide whether to maintain, improve, or abolish them to reduce the regulatory burden on the demand side.

According to the Korea Customs Service on the 23rd, the Regulatory Government Burden of Proof System, introduced last year to promote proactive administration, breaks the existing convention where the private sector must prove ‘why’ regulations should be lifted, and instead shifts the burden of proof to the government to demonstrate why regulations should be maintained.

Based on this system, the Korea Customs Service conducted a comprehensive review of 273 regulatory provisions within administrative rules, improving or abolishing 41 of them, and re-examined 40 proposals from the public and companies that were classified as difficult to accept or requiring long-term review, ultimately accepting 10 additional cases. To date, the total number of administrative rules improved or abolished by the Korea Customs Service has reached 51.

For example, a major case of regulatory relief is the allowance for raw materials brought into bonded factories to undergo customs clearance and then be repurposed for research use at affiliated research institutes.

Previously, when importing raw materials from overseas, it was necessary to distinguish between bonded factory-use items and research-use items upon import, and even if research-use raw materials were urgently needed, it was difficult to repurpose bonded factory-imported goods for domestic use.

This prohibition on repurposing was criticized as an obstacle to companies securing competitiveness in fields such as the bioindustry, where rapid research and development is vital. Typically, it took more than two months to separately order and receive research-use raw materials, making it impossible to use urgently needed raw materials in a timely manner.

However, this issue is expected to be resolved going forward. The Korea Customs Service recently held a regulatory review committee meeting under the Regulatory Government Burden of Proof System procedure and decided to allow manufacturing raw materials brought into bonded factories to be repurposed for research use after customs clearance.

The Korea Customs Service expects that this measure will help eliminate delays in research and development across various industries such as the bioindustry and strengthen corporate competitiveness by shortening new product launch periods.

In addition, the Korea Customs Service plans to improve regulations such as extending the storage period for bonded cargo of raw materials and abolishing the obligation to submit lists of discarded import declaration documents.

A Korea Customs Service official said, “We will continuously identify tasks that require regulatory improvement to help export-import companies overcome COVID-19 and revitalize the economy. To this end, the Korea Customs Service plans to first open an online portal and expand opportunities for the public and companies to participate in regulatory improvements.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.