THE Philippine Shippers’ Bureau (PSB) has deferred release of the amended version of Administrative Order (AO) No. 6 or the Revised Rules on Freight Forwarding pending resolution of some issues.
The development will, however, not affect the compliance timetable for new paid-up capital requirements of new and existing freight forwarders.
“The PSB is still fine tuning several provisions of the amended AO 6 but the capitalization requirement for old and new entrants of P4 million remains,” PSB executive director Pedro Vicente Mendoza told PortCalls.
“The memo I issued effectively extends compliance of the P4-million capital requirement for existing forwarders to January next year while new entrants should be compliant with the condition immediately before they are issued accreditation. These are all consistent with the amended version of AO 6,” Mendoza explained.
“Stakeholders should not make this an issue to further extend their compliance beyond 2009,” Mendoza said.
Some stakeholders, mostly small and medium-size freight forwarders are asking the PSB to further extend compliance to 2010 to allow them ample time to source funds for the new requirements.
Based on the AO amendment, specifically Rule XII, Sec. 52, by January 2, 2008, all new entrants in the freight forwarding business — whether non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC), international freight forwarder (IFF) or domestic freight forwarder (DFF) — should have complied with the new capitalization requirement for their respective categories.
The new capital requirement for NVOCCs is P4 million from the previous P500,000, and for international freight forwarders, P2 million. The requirement for DFFs has also been increased to P1 million from P250,000.
Existing NVOCCs have until January 2, 2009 to comply with the new requirement. Fifty percent of the new capital should have been raised by January 3, 2008 and the rest by January 2, 2009.
Existing DFFs also have until January 2, 2009 to comply with the new requirement.
In January 2006, PSB increased the capital requirement for existing and new players in the freight forwarding business to streamline the industry and eliminate fly-by-night companies. It also collapsed the previous five categories to three, namely NVOCC, IFF and DFF.
