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3. GENERAL REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES FOR DIAMONDS IN BELGIUM[5]
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (Licensing Office) and the Ministry of Finance (Customs) are in charge of supervising the observance of the regulations on the international diamond trade in Belgium. 3.1. Licences Belgium is the only country in the European Union and one of the few countries on the international field that uses a specific "licence system" for the import and export of all diamonds (rough, polished, industrial, powder and synthetic diamonds). The Ministry of Economic Affairs (Licensing Office) and the Ministry of Finance (Customs) administer this system, which was established during WW II, more particularly in 1944. The aim is to collect data regarding the qualification, the weight and the value of the imported or exported diamonds on the basis of licenses (non-EU) or statistical reports (EU) in order to get a complete "supervision". Furthermore, all diamond dealers and manufactures are annually obliged to submit a declaration to the Ministry of Economic Affairs about the stock and activities, allowing to check the collected data. The legal basis of the present system is:
In present practice, the licence system implies that in Belgium an import or export licence is required for every shipment, which you respectively want to import from or want to export to non-EU-countries. The licence system is not applicable for the import and the export of diamonds from and to other EU member countries. The following documents are used since the creation of the internal EU market (1992): "Statistical report of receipt/import of diamonds" and "Statistical report of shipment/export of diamonds". To receive an import or export licence, the diamond dealer has to complete an application form accompanied by an invoice for every transaction. The data have to be as precise as possible (applicant, country of origin, country of provenance, weight, value, addressee, shipper,…). The law provides sanctions (fines imprisonment and forfeiture of the goods) for the import or the export without a licence, for giving false information and for providing no information or documents at all. As the diamond trade is governed by the licence system (Ministerial Decrees of 15 September 1995 and 24 April 1997), it is not necessary to issue a specific Ministerial Decree in case of import or export embargoes. Announcements in diamond circles (e.g. requirement of the certificate of origin) quote the conditions for the import or the export from and to the countries under embargo. The General law concerning Customs and Excise Duty foresees following sanctions for breach of embargoes: imprisonment between four months and one year, a fine which can amount to twice the value of the goods and confiscation of the vehicle used for the smuggling. Repetition of the offence will lead to an imprisonment of at least eight months and maximum two years, double fine and confiscation of the means of transport used for smuggling. For every further repetition at least two years and maximum five years of imprisonment are foreseen. A diamond dealer must be registered in the Trade Register and the V.A.T.-administration before starting trade and he must be able to present evidence of basic knowledge of company management (issued by the Chamber of Trade and Business) to the services of the Trade Register. Moreover, foreigners need a Professional Card issued by the Ministry of Middle Class. At the Diamond Office a team of 7 customs officers takes care of the inward and outward clearance. They check the data received from the declarer (control bill of lading, invoice, plane tickets when couriers are involved, etc.). So, regular imports of diamonds are immediately referred by Customs Authorities to Diamond Office that takes care of the administrative standard for the inward and outward clearance. In case of export, the Customs Authorities check the goods before they leave Diamond Office definitively. The licences are accounted for the weight and value by Customs after the completion of the formalities. On the basis of the law of 11 September 1962 and the Customs legislation, Customs can process wrong or false reports by the declarer. The Customs Authorities are the only Belgian authorities who are competent to do so. Every shipment of diamonds (rough, polished, industrial, powder or synthetic diamonds) is for both import and export subjected to an expertise. When a shipment includes several parcels, each parcel will be opened and verified. According to the regulations, a sworn expert has to verify whether the content corresponds to the data (the value, the weight and the qualification of the goods) on the documents accompanying the shipment, namely the invoice and the import or export licence (non-EU) or the statistical report (EU). At this moment there are 11 active sworn experts. The expertise is carried out under the permanent supervision of two or three officials of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Differences between the content and the documents, observed by the experts, have to be reported to those officials, who will inform Customs Authorities for further action on identified violations or mistakes. The Minister of Economic Affairs appoints and swears in the experts after they have passed a capability test. That test is fixed by the Ministerial Decree of 9 March 1990. On the basis of a severe and objective examination, the candidates are evaluated on theoretical and practical skills. The import from and the export to EU member countries are not subject to customs formalities. The administrative formalities concerning the "statistical reports" and the expertise by Ministry of economic Affairs remain required. The statistics are made for rough, polished and industrial diamonds and mention for every country of provenance the total weight and value of the diamonds. Belgium is the only country that publishes detailed figures on a regular basis. The Belgian government asks all other countries, hosting diamond industry to the same.
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