SINGAPORE — Companies with high rates of violating Singapore Custom’s (SC) rules may be required to send their employees to the Singapore Customs Academy for compulsory training.

This was revealed at SC’s annual workplan seminar today, which unveiled a revised Customs 2015 blueprint, dubbed Customs 2015 Plus. The tweaks, said Director-General for Singapore Customs Fong Yong Kian, are to ensure the plans are kept “relevant”. The agency also plans to refine their penalty framework to strengthen the link between penalty quantum and the company’s history of compliance. It did not give further details.

The seminar was attended by Minister of State for Finance and Transport Josephine Teo, who praised SC for its “intensive use of information technology… leveraging on (it) to simplify, reduce the necessary paperwork and provide timely responses to… business partners”.

SC also plans to tighten its processes to increase efficiency, such as by studying the feasibility of technologies like mobile and track-and-trace to extend paperless clearance to conventional cargo - which would mostly impact ground and air cargo - to speed up clearance operations at checkpoints here.

It will also work to implement the ASEAN Single Window project, such as the Customs Transit System. This system is intended to allow goods to be ferried across multiple ASEAN countries using only one customs declaration form and guarantee.

Profiling to identify possible illicit cargoes earlier will also be enhanced, by tapping on options such as new profiling methodologies and external data sources.

SC said it is also looking to form a trading community watch group, which would work to keep an eye out for suspicious illicit trades during the course of their operations.

At the launch yesterday, Mr Fong also shared the survey results from last year’s Traders’ Satisfaction Survey. Last year, 97.7 per cent of traders were satisfied with working with SC, up 4.3 per cent from 2011. These numbers, he said, “are the highest since (Customs) was re-constituted 10 years ago”.

This was the first time SC’s annual workplan seminar was attended by both private and public stakeholders. About 250 representatives, including members of the Customs Advisory Council, attended.