Good Manufacturing Practices (or GMP) is a quality system used by the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industry, including also GMP Animal Feed. GMP’s are guidelines that outline the aspects of production and testing. Records of manufacture (including distribution) that enable the complete history of a batch to be traced are retained in a comprehensible and accessible form.

The basic GMP rules:

1. GMP certified companies need to dispose of written work methods:  Procedures, instruction sheets, forms, … This set of documents is the “quality manual” and describes e.g. how to purchase, transport, store, produce and a series of other activities take place;
2. GMP certified companies have to follow the work methods: The written procedures have to be applied. This means that the reality has to correspond with the written work methods;
3. GMP certified companies have to provide evidence: GMP companies have to prove to the internal and external auditor that they apply to the identified rules in the written procedures. Documents to guarantee any kind of control have to be created.

These 3 basic rules are very useful for the AEO certification process, but the overlap goes even further: Setting up a GMP system cannot be done without the support of the executive board. This support is also crucial for the AEO certification process.

For the GMP certification inventories of e.g. vehicles, equipment, inbound and outbound flows, staff … are needed. These inventories, as well as the schematic overview of the activities, are useful for the AEO certification. Very interesting is the risk analysis. This GMP risk analysis is concentrated on the potential risks regarding food and feed safety. The extension to safety and security in AEO isn’t far away.

AEO certification needs ?

C4T has developed the AEO tool to support your AEO certification process. This webbased tool decreases the efforts of internal/external ressources and reduces the project time. Our AEO tool is an interactive platform assuring a user-friendly and flexible way of working and can be used for your AEO certification needs in 27 EU Member States.

The C4T AEO-tool can be ordered with or without C4T AEO assistance. Upon your request, our competent AEO team guids you through the AEO certification process:

• Self-assessment: guidance, co-ordination, review or validation procedures;
• Identify remediation measures;
• Develop and implement an internal control plan;
• Draft and submit your application;
• Assistance with the audit by the customs authorities.

If you want more information, contact us  info@customs4trade.com

The EU is developing the Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) to carry out control of transit of excise goods within the Member States. The computerized EMCS system is used for movements of excise goods under suspension and replaces the paper Administrative Accompanying Document (AAD)  by an e-AD (electronic Administrative Document). Each Member State develops its own national EMCS application, which is connected to all other countries.

According to the Belgian planning of the EMCS roadmap, the roll-out would be performed as follows:

1 April 2010:  

• e-ADs from other Members States to Belgium have to be discharged electronically
• submitting e-Ads from Belgium to any other Member State is possible

 1 Juli 2010:

• realization of the link between PLDA and EMCS for import and export movements

 1 january 2011:

• all movements of excise goods under suspension of excise duty shall be carried out using EMCS

Belgian Customs will postpone the deployment milestone “1 July 2010″.  Probably the date will be shifted to 31 December 2010.

Specialist software suppliers have developed solutions based on the country specific requirements which allow fully automated exchange of messages with the authorities’ systems of the different countries. Belgian Customs Authorities have also made available a free EMCS web application.

Upon request, we can assist you with your decision which solution is best for your company. Customs4trade, being an independent customs and international trade advisory company, has guided national and international companies to the EMCS web and has assisted several clients to assess excise and/or customs activities. It is our aim to realize streamlined and uniform customs/excise authorizations and procedures.  This facilitates your software decisions and can lead to substantial savings on implementation and operational costs.

Whether your company is using an EMCS software solution or the EMCS-web, in both cases the  Authorized Economic Operators and AEO-candidates have to install control measures in order to make sure that their import/export process and procedures are AEO compliant.

 If you are interested in our EMCS services, just give us a call on +32 15 46 08 46 or send an e-mail to info@customs4trade.com

The European Commission launched a public consultation on 12 July to aks businesses and the public for their views on possible VAT simplifications to facilitate customs centralised clearance.

“Centralised clearance” is a possibility for the importers that hold an authorization to both declare and pay customs duties to the customs administration of their Member State of authorisation, independent from the place of import and destination of goods within the EU. However, under the present VAT rules, the importers, even using centralised clearance, would still be subject to VAT obligations in each Member State of physical arrival and destination of goods. The aim of this consultation is to obtain views on a series of solutions relating to the possible adaptions of VAT collection rules.

The consultation will run until 31 October 2010. You can find more information here.