On Friday, July 23, 2010, the Senate passed The Duty Free Shopping System Act, a Bill that allows arriving and departing passengers (which includes residents and tourists) at the international airports to make duty free purchases upon arrival into the country.
“This (the Bill) is in keeping with the Government’s policy to encourage and increase tourist arrival and spending which could result in increased hard currency earning accruing to Jamaica and to improve our position in the duty free industry.” Minister of Justice, Attorney General and Leader of Government Business, Senator Dorothy Lightbourne said.
“The duty free industry worldwide is a multi-billion dollar one, in 2002, it was valued at US$20 billion.” She further cited that the industry experienced a number of challenges since September 11, 2001 (9/11) and the recent recession, however, the multiplier potential of the industry on the economy cannot be ignored.
The main purpose is to offer arriving visitors and residents the option to defer duty free purchases until their arrival at the airports in Jamaica. The Inbond shops would be located at the airport before processing for immigration and customs and would provide convenient shopping for arriving passengers. The goods purchased, she informed, would be treated in the same manner as duty free goods purchased at the port of embarkation of or on the aircraft before arrival.
For Jamaican nationals the goods would be assessed in accordance with the duty free allowance of US$500.00, eligible to passengers over the age of 18 years.
She also informed that the schedule of approved goods has been amended to expand the number of items for sale in a bid to provide a more complete shopping experience. The additional items include leather wear; perfumed soaps, sunglasses; loose gem stones (precious and semi-precious cut and polished); watch straps; watch bracelets and other watch accessories and writing instruments (including mechanical pencils).
The idea of duty of arrival Duty Free shopping is not new as the Airport Authority, she said, has been pursuing this aspect of tourism since the early 1990s. She also added that our Caribbean counterparts including Trinidad and Tobago, St. Maartin, Barbados and Panama have already established arrival duty free shopping systems.
Additionally, Senator Lightbourne said the Bill seeks to revise the penalties associated with the operation of duty free shops, to improve the administrative procedures for monitoring the In-bond system by requiring periodic returns, to ensure that the holder of a duty free operations licence has sufficient resources to carry out his operations, and to provide for the removal of certain restrictions on the number of display centres in the parish in which the licensed duty free shop is located.
Concerns were raised by an Opposition members with regard to the list of approved items as some of the items were deemed outdated, for example, cassette players, hi-fi components, and record changers or players. There was a collective agreement that these items be struck from the list and replaced with more modern gadgets such as the iPods, iPads, MP3 players, CD players etc.
Senator Kamina Johnson Smith assured members that the list of prescribed items will be updated to reflect 2010 technology. “I am very pleased to assure this House that the Honourable Minister has already charged the Tax Policy Division with an amendment to the Schedule, to remove the items to which you have referred to and update them in language that is technologically neutral and, accordingly, will move with the times…”
“We are already on the job,” she said.
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