Introduction
World Customs Organisation (WCO0 is an intergovernmental organisation which has its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. WCO deals with issues such as development of international conventions, collection of customs revenues, drugs enforcement, supply chain security, rules of origin, commodity classification, custom reform etc.
Visions and objectives
WCO is worldwide known for its expertise in customs and deals with the systems and procedure of custom implementation. It also responds to the needs of its member states.
Its primary objective is to increase efficiency and effectiveness of its member custom administration, so that it can assist to the national development goals like revenue collection, trade facilitation, collection of trade statistics etc.
Instruments
- Arusha Declaration on Customs Integrity- It was adopted in 1993 and deals with basic principles to combat corruption in the customs administration.
- ATA Convention and the Convention on Temporary Admission (Istanbul Convention)
- International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS Convention)- It was adopted in 1983 and was enforced in 1988. This is used as a basis for custom tariffs and compilation of trade statistics.
- International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs procedures (revised Kyoto Convention of RKC)- Adopted in 1974, revised in 1999 and came into force in 2006.
- The Columbus Program- It is a program which promotes custom modernization and application of their standards to increase the world trade.
- The SAFE Framework of Standards to secure and Facilitate Global Trade- It was adopted in 2005. This instrument is used to strengthen network between custom administrations to improve their capability of detecting high risk consignments. It also contains standards for goods which are traded internationally.
Reforms
It is clear that strong and effective Customs administration is required to implement a set of procedures for more safety and security. This can be achieved with the help of reforms. Through the process of reforming, there is always a scope of improving more and developing more effective principles.
