The Department of Revenue and Customs (DRC), Ministry of Finance, Bhutan conducted a User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of the first two components of the Revenue Administration and Management System (RAMIS) Customs and Excise Module for focal officials of DRC on 25 May-01 June 2015 and 17-25 August 2015, in Thimphu, Bhutan. Following training of the focal officials, hands-on testing and training sessions are being rolled out in a phased manner to all Customs officers throughout Bhutan to build in-house capacity and skills in operating RAMIS. Over 280 Customs officers received training on 7-18 September 2015 in Phuentsholing, Paro, Samtse, Gelephu, Samdrupjongkhar, and Thimphu on how to use the RAMIS applications.

RAMIS, DRC’s upgraded automated system for Customs clearance procedures to be rolled out in early 2016, has been developed under both technical assistance and loan/grant funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), including the SASEC Trade Facilitation Program, approved in 2012. All RAMIS capacity and skills development training is financed by technical assistance from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, administered by ADB.

Bhutan is working to increase intraregional trade by increasing efficiencies in trade facilitation processes and procedures, in particular through operationalizing upgraded ICT systems to significantly reduce the number of required documents and other cumbersome procedures at the border to cut time and costs for traders. Bhutan has adopted a phased strategic upgrading to the new web-based transaction database RAMIS.