The Western Cape is an area
of opportunity, especially
in the retail and agricultural
sectors, said Gregory Bruce, the
Cape Town-based representative of
Core Freight Systems, the software
service providers specialising in
SA freight forwarding and customs
clearing.
“The retail industry is an area of
increasing interest,” he told FTW,
“especially in light of the fact that
many of the major players in this
sector have their head offices in
Cape Town – and hence much of
their strategic thinking and systems
competence is resident in the
province.”
According to Bruce, an
imperative is to optimise the
processes employed by all the
participants in the supply chain,
whether the goods are destined
for local consumption or onward
distribution to operations elsewhere
in the African continent.
“Our target is the continuous
improvement of the SA leg of
this supply chain – either through
facilitating the interface of data
with other applications, or through
the potential internal efficiencies
inherent within the application
itself,” he said.
“As an example, we have been
successful in the facilitation of the
duty drawback process. This is
applicable where importers claim
from the SA Revenue Service
(Sars) the customs duty paid on
stock originally imported for local
consumption but subsequently
re-exported. Production of the
DA63 documentation required can
be a tiresome manual exercise.
As a result we have heard of
instances where companies have
just not bothered. However, with
appropriate design and technology
flexibility, this can be addressed,
resulting in substantial savings to
the importer.”
Agricultural exports are also
an important contributor to
the Western Cape economy.
Notwithstanding the impact of
the global recession, Bruce said,
these have grown significantly
over the past decade – with
major contributions from the
fruit and wine sectors. “We have
a number of clients servicing
this sector, and have developed
functionality within the system to
accommodate industry-specific
data requirements.”
CAPTION
Gregory Bruce … ‘success achieved
in facilitation of the duty drawback
process.’
