S. Korea's electronic customs clearance portal experiences glitch

SEOUL, July 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's export-import clearance portal system experienced an abrupt processing delay that inconvenienced many users, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Monday.
It said the UNI-PASS system started showing signs of slowing down at around 3 p.m. with data-processing time being delayed by more than 2 hours, compared to less than 2 minutes during normal operating conditions.
The system is the world's first complete electronic clearance portal system that provides easy clearance procedures for both outbound and inbound goods, duty collection and drawback, and tracking bonded cargo. It also offers verification of trade-related requirements in customs declarations.
Since its debut in 2005, the system has handled an average of 210,000 cases of trade-related files per day, with companies and customs brokers being the main users.
"The cause of the delay in services has been determined to be connected with an unanticipated glitch in the operating algorithm as the old Internet connection system is being replaced with a new one," the KCS said.
It said the system gradually began performing normal operations again after 7 p.m.
yonngong@yna.co.kr