Japan AFR + (AHR)
Apart from filing the MBL data by carrier or co-loader, it is subject to the AHR when you issue the HBL;
Providers are the vendor for filing AHR.
For those who would like to know more about AFR following is the website of NACCS centre.
http://www.naccscenter.com/afr/
Also we have been asked several times that if we can file the AHR instead.
Unfortunately our answer is no so far.
Reasons are too risky to have all the responsibility at destination and it cost us more to file the data at Japan considering our manpower cost per hours.
However we can support your AFR by accessing to the data for checking and we can even amend or appeal to customs directly when something comes up.
One condition required though.
When you ask your provider to file your HBL data please ask them to input following information additionally.
1) Notification forwarding party code: 4ZKCC
2) House carrier code: KCC1 + HBL number ( you can also let us know the first 4 digit code before the HBL number if your provider does not know how to put our house carrier code on the database. Each provider has his/her own 4 digit carrier code and our code is KCC1; they can put destination code instead of using their code.)
AFR has been operated from March 2014 and it is actually still test period so to say.
But now customs of Japan announcing that they will use the third party to check any discrepancy between AMR and AHR or AFR and Import declaration soon.
To find the service provider, pls click: http://www.lfsgroup.org/upload/news/23/self/5397e8cd237c9.pdf