Article 16

Licences shall be issued by the competent authorities of the Member States within five working days following the fifth working day following the day of notification provided for in Article 15.

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By way of derogation from Article 23 of Regulation (EC) No 1291/2000, import licences shall be valid only during the subperiod for which they are issued. Import licences shall contain in box 24 one of the entries listed in Annex XX.

Import licences issued under this Chapter may be transferred only to natural or legal persons approved in accordance with Section 2. When licences are transferred, the transferor shall notify the issuing body of the approval number of the transferee.

By way of derogation from point (b) of the first subparagraph of Article 11(1) in conjunction with the second subparagraph of that Article of Regulation (EC) No 1301/2006, Member States shall notify the Commission of the quantities, including nil returns, covered by import licences they have issued, within 10 working days following the end of the period for issuing those licences referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.