at Customs. With the paperless customs, the dwell time to clear a consignment shall be drastically reduced hence promoting trade facilitation. ICT Infrastructure Enhancement Customs Department should enhance its ICT Infrastructure in order to meet the technical requirements of the paperless Customs Project. New storage with higher capacity (10-20 TB) must be ready to store commercial declaration and manifest data. Communication interfaces between Stakeholders and Customs Department must be upgraded for smooth data flow. Upgrade of infrastructure shall also be required at the declarants/importers side to adapt to the paperless environment. Member States should provide consider ‘bulk scanning’ facilities at strategic hubs to assist the capture of stakeholder supporting documents. Tried and tested solutions already in operation should be considered by Member States wherever possible. Pilot Testing It is important to conduct a pilot test of the paperless customs with some declarants and importers to ensure smooth business operations and rectify any issues in the system and at the declarant/importers side. Time Frame for Project Completion The paperless Customs project is feasible in 6 to 12 months depending on the complexity of the Customs Administration and cooperation of stakeholders. Project Challenges · Legal amendments shall be done in order to accept softcopy of invoices and other related documents · The data transmission charges shall not increase with the introduction of paperless declarations and attachments. The objective of the paperless Customs Project is to reduce cost of doing business and facilitate trade. · The customs officers must be well trained and accept the change from current process to newly paperless environment. The management team must provide their full support in order to adapt to the new operations. · Awareness campaign in order to convince all declarants/importers to adopt the paperless system at their side. Investment may be required by some declarants/importers to enhance their ICT infrastructure (Scanners and data lines). 23 Draft SADC Customs ICT Strategy 2012 Page 23