Mexico Prepares New Port and Customs Reforms

Mexico is preparing an overhaul of its customs procedures and port infrastructure, according to recent reports. At an event at the Port of Manzanillo, Mexican General Administrator of Customs Ricardo Peralta Saucedo said he is preparing a new National Customs Strategy for presentation to the Mexican Cabinet and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that will set forth changes to customs operations to facilitate trade, said a March 19 report in the Mexican logistics news site T21. Other officials at the event also announced port modernization initiatives.

In an effort to reduce supply chain costs due to customs exams, Mexico will make an “important investment” to replace gamma-ray scanners with X-ray scanners for non-intrusive inspections, reducing reviews and truck queues, said an official with the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transport.

Also, during a presentation on the “Modernization Plan for Customs Port Operations,” General Coordinator for Ports and Merchant Marine Hector Lopez Gutierrez said that customs at the Port of Manzanillo -- Mexico’s busiest ocean port and its second-busiest overall after Nuevo Laredo -- will extend operations to 24 hours. Other initiatives that will form part of the plan relate to port and customs security, the modernization of technological systems, and the overall increase in opening hours for customs at other ports, the report said.

Meanwhile, the National Customs Strategy will result in a “new judicial-legal regime” that will adhere to the transparency and technical requirements of the revised Kyoto Convention on simplification and harmonization of customs procedures, but at the same will be a “fundamental actor in the reconstruction of the social fabric damaged by years of the neoliberal regime, fortunately now extinct,” said Peralta Saucedo in a March 18 editorial in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior.

One part of that will be a new customs law that aligns with international law, but that protects national industry, facilitates commerce and the modernization of infrastructure, and makes Mexico more competitive, Peralta Saucedo said. One major priority is joint clearance operations, he said. He also noted a large quantity of abandoned merchandise that can be donated “in a country full of deprivation.”