Three service providers appointed to provide Government Electronic Trading Services from 2019
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GETS is an electronic service platform through which the trading community submits a number of trade-related documents to the Government for customs control, trade declaration, trade control and statistics compilation purposes. The contracts of the current GETS SPs are due to expire on December 31, 2018.
The Government launched an open tendering exercise in April last year with a view to appointing up to three SPs (subject to market response) for the provision of GETS from January 2019 to December 2024. Following a competitive selection process, Brio Electronic Commerce Limited, Global e-Trading Services Limited and Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited were appointed as GETS SPs. All three SPs will offer services for the submission of import and export declarations, dutiable commodities permits, cargo manifests and certificates of origin.
"Modelling on the arrangements in past GETS contracts, we have put in place a number of regulatory measures in the new contracts. The SPs will be bound by the service charge ceilings proposed in their tenders and are required to publish their service charges for public information," a spokesman for the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau said.
"Technical enhancements relating to the processing of import and export declarations and dutiable commodities permits were also introduced in the new contracts," the spokesman added.
The new contracts will run for six years up to December 2024. To ensure a smooth transition to the future Trade Single Window which is expected to take over from GETS upon its full implementation, the new contracts will allow possible extension for up to three years at the Government's option.
GETS SPs are responsible for collecting data electronically from traders/carriers, confirming their identity, and validating and transmitting the data to the Government's backend systems. To cater for the needs of some users, they are also required to provide services for converting paper submissions into electronic submissions for transmission to the Government. In 2017, the transaction volume of GETS documents was about 21 million.
Ends/Friday, February 2, 2018
Issued at HKT 11:15
Issued at HKT 11:15
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