Tracking mandates could raise costs
Shipping lines warned that the Philippines’ proposed In‑Transit Asset Management and Supervision System (ITAMS) could add billions in costs without clear benefits — a signal that mandatory tracking regimes can be expensive to implement. Caribbean operators should watch similar proposals: mandated visibility rules elsewhere are being debated and could ripple into compliance and freight budgets. (manilatimes.net)
The Association of International Shipping Lines (AISL) filed a position paper dated March 17 arguing the Bureau of Customs’ ITAMSS will be “ineffective,” add procedural layers and constitute regulatory overreach. (portcalls.com) The draft rules propose a minimum P850 booking fee per container, a levy AISL quantified as roughly P2.6 billion in extra annual costs to the logistics chain. (portcalls.com) BOC’s draft Customs Memorandum Order frames ITAMSS as part of the BOC Digitalization 2025 program and explicitly implements Customs Administrative Order No. 08‑2019, citing the WCO Convention, the CMTA (RA 10863) and the WCO SAFE Framework as legal bases. (customs.gov.ph) The draft mandates accreditation of ITAMSS service providers, use of electronic customs seals for empty-container movements, and places operational oversight under the BOC deputy commissioner for Assessment and Operations, while stakeholders were originally given a March 6 deadline to submit comments. (portcalls.com) AISL urged revisiting the previously discussed Automated Container Movement Monitoring System as an alternative end‑to‑end solution that it says would impose no cost on government or the transacting public. (portcalls.com)
