Articles under section " Events "

In June 2019, experts in Customs, trade, transport, logistics and technology gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss matters relating to the various technologies used to manage flows of goods, people and means of conveyance across borders, with a focus on both technological products, services and t...

Data is the new oil and free flow of data is needed Customs has a lot of information at its disposal. The first information they collect is pre-arrival declaration information related to shippers, consignees, values and commodities, i.e. typical manifest information. Additional information is col...

The sound of African drums and dances welcomed participants as they arrived at the 4th WCO Global AEO Conference that begun in Kampala, Uganda on 14 March 2018. They were addressed by the President of Uganda, H.E. Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who gave an inspiring message on the importance of regional...

Recognized as the largest WCO capacity building event, the WCO AEO Global Conference boasts the largest number of workshops held during an event, covering a variety of topics related to the security and facilitation of the global trade supply chain. The conference is organized by the WCO once every...

The annual WCO PICARD Conference took place in Baku, Azerbaijan from 8 to 10 September 2015, giving rise to stimulating interdisciplinary debates around the following main themes: global value chains (GVCs); taxation and other revenue matters; and smuggling. Following the issuance of a Call for Pape...

From 26 to 29 October 2015, for the fifth time, the WCO organized its Technology & Innovation (TI) Forum, a platform for leading experts and decision-makers from various border agencies, technology companies, academia and international organizations to exchange ideas on border management, enforc...

The Convention establishing a Customs Co-operation Council entered into force on 4 November 1952. Accordingly, the World Customs Organization (WCO), as the Customs Co-operation Council is now known, is celebrating its 70th Anniversary this year. Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium and WCO ...

The core business of Customs administrations may well lie in making trade secure, but the time spent conducting inspections on goods consignments continues to decrease. The use of technology, in particular non-intrusive inspection (NII) equipment such as scanners and endoscopes, has contributed cons...

The WCO recognized the value of research and education as part of the response to the many challenges Customs administrations are facing. Crucial in stimulating research is enabling researchers and professionals to interact with each other. As hosts of the 5th TI Forum, the Customs administration o...

If the conferences organized by the WCO Secretariat usually address technical matters related to Customs and trade, such as information technology, authorized economic operators (AEOs), the Harmonized System, or security, one event was an exception last year: the Communication Strategies Conference....

Staff need to be informed and their voice heard Internal communication can be defined as the way an organization interacts with its staff and the way they interact with it. Its purpose is to create a shared understanding of the organization’s values and goals among employees. Also, it is notably...

Environmental concerns are at the centre of many policies which impact on trade, and which Customs administrations consequently have to implement. Some of those policies are already into force, while others are under negotiation at the regional and international levels. To stimulate discussions on ...

Discussions also touched on the taxation of carbon emissions. Participants learned about the initiative launched by a member of the automotive industry to measure the CO2 emissions of products and their constituent parts, and to track this information though the entire value chain. The first panel a...

Every year, the WCO IT Conference and Exhibition brings together Customs, trade, transport and technology provider representatives to discuss matters relating to the various technologies used to manage flows of goods, people and means of conveyance across borders. Besides enabling participants to ta...

The next step should be to level the playing field with respect to performance. As one speaker asked: “Rather than mandate the IQI or penetration performances on an NII system, why not standardize those along with the testing regime in which they are met?” Similarly: “Instead of prescribing im...

AI can take the fight against commercial fraud to the next level AI and machine learning can enable Customs to identify cases of undervaluation, misclassification, misdescription and misdeclared country of origin. Experts shared analysis methodologies with participants, such as using exporter data...

From 31 October to 2 November 2017, for the sixth time, the WCO organized its Technology & Innovation Forum, a platform for leading technology experts and decision-makers from various border agencies, as well as representatives of the academic world and international organizations, to discuss te...

Many experiences were shared during the International Conference “Respect for IP – Growing from the Tip of Africa,” which took place at the end of October 2018 in Sandton, South Africa. The conference was co-organized by South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) an...

Potential development tool Opening the conference, Joan Fubbs, the South African Parliament’s Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry, summarized what was at stake: “Lately, there is a widening consensus among African leaders that economic sustainability hinges on the stru...

WCO events went digital in 2020, including the WCO annual conference dedicated to technology, recently rebranded as the WCO TECH-CON. The theme of the 2020 edition[1] was dictated by the circumstances, and the 50 speakers were asked to share their experience of how technology had helped them manage ...

The pandemic has also provided an opportunity to internalize the idea of digitization, which was always an option, but not necessarily a priority, for governments and their agencies. Customs administrations have used the opportunity to advance digitalization initiatives that were already underway, ...

The WCO has been prioritizing security-related issues for some years now, developing norms and practices to secure the supply chain and advocating that Customs administrations play an active role in addressing border security-related challenges. In fact, in December 2015 WCO Members adopted the Punt...

WCO Security Programme A key part of the arsenal of tools developed by the WCO to assist countries in securing the supply chain is the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade (SAFE Framework), which was adopted in 2005. The SAFE Framework, together with other tools an...