News: Recent changes to Egyptian customs law

Our listed correspondent in Egypt, Eldib Pandi, have been kind enough to provide us with the attached detailed opinion. 

With respect to the New Customs Law No. 207/2020, there have been a number of significant changes made to Egyptian customs law. These are dealt within the attachment, but to briefly summarise two key points for vessels calling to Egypt in the future:

1. Article 46 of the customs law requires every consignment of cargo to be mentioned in the general cargo manifest, which is to be signed by the master or nominated shipping agent.
2. Article 71 imposes a customs penalty fine of EGP 30,000 on the carrier if the master or nominted shipping agent fails to provide the above-mentioned manifest in a timely manner and/or if it transpires to be inaccurate, no matter how innocent the mistake in the manifest.

Eldib Advocates Maritime attended numerous meetings with the relevant government bodies involved with creating this new customs law. Their legal team presented numerous objections before the Minister of Finance, Minister of Transport, the Head of the Customs Authority and Members of Parliament. Some of these objections have been addressed in the customs law, but numerous others have not.

Eldib Pandi will continue to work and present all grievances in the best way possible through the proper channels, in order for the new customs law to hopefully come out with additional Executive Regulations which will not unduly impact the transport industry in Egypt.