Customs and Border Control officials registered nearly $130 million worth of incoming goods in November as individual imports by residents reached a record 23,407.
CBC said it expects the holiday season to break records as nearly 2,000 individual imports were logged in the first two days of December.
“Historically this time of year, imports always tend to increase, but we have never seen this amount of imports before,” CBC Deputy Director Kevin Walton told the Cayman Compass in an interview on 2 Dec.
Imports cross 20,000 monthly
There have been more than 22,000 imports every month since June. November logged the highest number of imports at 23,407.
In November 2019, imports were just shy of the 16,000 mark. This year’s pension-withdrawal scheme to enable individuals to access their funds contributed to the rise in imports, Walton said.
People began purchasing more items with that money which, “increased the amount of imports that we were seeing just after COVID.
Since then, it has maintained an increase,” he said.
Walton said the department has redeployed resources to assist in the clearing of imports in the coming weeks. While individual imports have increased, CBC has also recorded doubling and, in some cases, tripling of courier and consolidator imports.
This, he said, created a strain on those companies, leading to challenges with customers receiving their imports after they had been cleared.
Boost in resources, longer opening hours
Walton said while CBC had faced challenges in managing the initial increase in imports, those issues had been resolved and things are moving faster.
The department also has cleared up a bottleneck in the system by now emailing importers directly when their goods are cleared so they can liaise with their courier service to receive the items.
Previously, the couriers would be the ones in contact with CBC.
Walton said the CBC will also be announcing extended operating hours to help clear imports for the Christmas season.
“I know officers are working shift patterns in order to cover the extra amount of imports that we have and if they have to work overtime” the CBC has budgeted for that, he said.
He also stressed that the agent authorisation form must be completed at least 48 hours before the goods arrive to make the clearing process more efficient.
Walton said CBC is improving its online portal to allow importers to directly select their courier or consolidator when applying for agent authorisation and that system upgrade should be ready for the new year.
The CBC deputy director urged members of the public to use the department’s new customer support centre.
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