World Customs Organisation (WCO) meeting in Mumbai concludes

Other issues covered during the three-day session included those related to small island economies and how to bring them in the mainstream of the supply chain and free trade zones.  Member countries exchanged their experiences and best practices in different areas of cross border trade.

Officials from the WCO presented the work being done in WCO on various areas, including a discussion on Strategic Plan (2019-2022) of WCO to carry forward work on trade facilitation, revenue collection, protection of society and capacity building. 

Delegates also discussed the importance of measuring performance for various procedures related to cross border clearance and methodologies to be adopted. 

Referring to different global tools to measure performance including the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, it was debated that there must be a performance measure tool for the customs in WCO, which would enable the customs administrations to measure their performance on different areas related to clearance of import and export goods.

The chairman, CBIC and member (customs) had separate bilateral talks on the margins of the session with different countries to deliberate on their mutual issues concerning customs. These countries included the US, UK, Iran, Uruguay, Uganda, Bahrain, Peru, South Korea, Brazil, New-Zealand, Russia and Nigeria. 

India and Peru also signed an agreement for mutual cooperation while India and Uganda signed a Joint Action Plan (JAP) for mutual recognition agreement (MRA) for facilitating trade of authorised economic operators (AEO) for the two countries.

The three day session of the policy commission meeting of the WCO was organised by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), from 3 to 5 December 2018.