The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try (MTI) says fail­ures to com­ply with laws and reg­u­la­tions are re­spon­si­ble for the de­lays scrap met­al deal­ers have been com­plain­ing about.

In a state­ment ad­dress­ing con­cerns raised by the Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Mon­day, the MTI said its Trade Li­cence Unit (TLU) can process an ap­pli­ca­tion for an ex­port li­cence for scrap met­al in as lit­tle as one day. How­ev­er, it not­ed that de­lays of­ten arise due to deal­ers' non-com­pli­ance, in­clud­ing the sub­mis­sion of in­com­plete or in­ac­cu­rate doc­u­men­ta­tion.

TTSI­DA has warned that the cur­rent ex­port sys­tem could force mem­bers to shut down. Its pres­i­dent, Al­lan Fer­gu­son, ex­plained that af­ter sub­mit­ting doc­u­ments to the MTI, deal­ers typ­i­cal­ly wait three to sev­en weeks for a re­sponse or ex­port li­cences to be grant­ed. Vice Pres­i­dent Er­ros See­jat­tan added that the process in­volves ap­prox­i­mate­ly two weeks to ac­cu­mu­late the re­quired amount of ma­te­ri­als, a min­i­mum of three weeks to ob­tain a li­cence, and an­oth­er two weeks or more to se­cure an in­spec­tion be­fore load­ing can oc­cur.

As a re­sult, Fer­gu­son said deal­ers are fac­ing em­bar­rass­ment from scrap met­al col­lec­tors due to the low prices they can of­fer. He ex­plained that the de­lays di­rect­ly im­pact op­er­a­tions, and if deal­ers could pro­cure, load, and ship ma­te­ri­als more quick­ly, they could of­fer high­er prices to col­lec­tors due to faster turnover.

How­ev­er, in its me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the MTI stat­ed that since re­open­ing the in­dus­try in Feb­ru­ary 2023, the TLU has processed 853 ex­port li­cence ap­pli­ca­tions for scrap met­al and fa­cil­i­tat­ed 1,325 No­tices of In­tent and load­ings.

"Up­on re­ceipt of an ap­pli­ca­tion, the TLU con­ducts a thor­ough re­view to en­sure ac­cu­ra­cy and com­pli­ance with the rel­e­vant le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments. In cas­es where ap­pli­ca­tions are in­com­plete, con­tain mis­matched fig­ures be­tween the li­cence re­quest and the scrap met­al record ledger, in­clude in­cor­rect tar­iff codes, or lack in­voic­es from the con­signee, queries are is­sued to ap­pli­cants for rec­ti­fi­ca­tion and re­sub­mis­sion. The pro­cess­ing of an ap­pli­ca­tion can on­ly con­tin­ue up­on re­ceipt of a com­plete and cor­rect­ed sub­mis­sion," the MTI stat­ed.

The min­istry al­so reaf­firmed the TLU's com­mit­ment to work­ing close­ly with all ap­pli­cants to fa­cil­i­tate a smooth and ef­fi­cient process. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the MTI said it will con­tin­ue to en­hance the ef­fi­cien­cy of the leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, as demon­strat­ed by the launch of two new e-ser­vices on 30 Au­gust 2024 for ap­pli­ca­tions for Scrap Met­al Col­lec­tor’s Li­cences and Scrap Met­al Deal­er’s Li­cences.

Fur­ther im­prove­ments are ex­pect­ed in March with the in­tro­duc­tion of ad­di­tion­al e-ser­vices, in­clud­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for Per­mits for Ship­ment/Al­ter­ation of Scrap Met­al, Scrap Met­al Per­mits for the Ship­ment of Bro­ken Ma­chin­ery di­rect­ly from the Place Where Stored, and Scrap Met­al No­tices of In­ten­tion to Load and Fit for Ship­ping Cer­tifi­cates.