The live pilot of the new ALV (Automatic License Verification) system for HMI & PHSI regulated produce, which is being implemented by the cross-government International Trade Single Window Project to save time transferring fresh produce consignments, is drawing to a close after five months.

But the Fresh Produce Consortium has said there are a number of IT issues that need to be resolved before ALV is fully implemented and it has urged the industry to get involved in the process before its implementation.

Plans are being prepared for a phased roll-out across the fresh produce and plants industry, so that by January 2010 all imports of flowers, plants, fruit and vegetables into England and Wales from third countries which are regulated by HMI or PHSI will be routed through ALVS.

ALV provides an electronic link between the Peach system and the HMRC’s CHIEF system. This means that consignment release decisions from HMI and PHSI Inspectors are transmitted electronically and in real time, directly into CHIEF, therefore removing the need for agents or importers to send Quarantine Release Certificates (QRCs) or Conformity Certificates to the HMRC National Clearance Hub at Salford.

This updates directly into CHIEF results in the customs clearance times of containers which are subject to HMI or PHSI control being reduced from the current two hours down to 10-15 minutes, once the HMI or PHSI inspection decision has been made.

DEFRA’s Mike Peters, ALV project manager, said: “Twenty agents and importers participated in the ALV Pilot and they all have benefited from the reduced clearance times that ALV delivers. We are now at a point where it is realistic to encourage further trade take-up of ALV across the horticultural imports industry, prior to January 2010 when all such imports will be routed through ALV automatically.

“ALV receives import declarations from CHIEF and applications from Peach and initially attempts to match them together using the Declaration Unique Consignment Reference (DUCR). Therefore, the DUCR entered on the import declaration must match exactly with the DUCR entered in Peach. Once ALV has matched the DUCR, it checks to see that the weights on Peach and CHIEF match and the TARIC Code entered in the declaration exactly match the commodity and variety entered on Peach. If these three key data items all match, then once HMI or PHSI grant a release, automatic clearance will occur in 10-15 minutes, subject to no additional customs checks. Currently, manual clearance times can take up to two hours.”

The phased implementation of ALV is set to start next month as DEFRA waits for HMRC to complete a service improvement project on its system which links CHIEF and ALV.

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