There are currently over 400 free trade agreements and preferential trade arrangements in place worldwide, which establish lower rates of Customs duties for certain goods provided that specified origin criteria are met. However, many companies ignore the fact that they can claim tar...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement was signed on 4 February 2016. It aims to establish a more seamless trade and investment environment through commonly-agreed rules and the promotion of transparent laws and regulations, providing greater certainty for businesses, reducing costs and re...
The WCO is pleased to share the links to current work in this area and the news that an open Global Forum on Origin Interconnectivity will be held in February 2025.
The WCO started the latest round of work looking at the digitalization of origin related procedures in 2022 when it conducted...
With a view to facilitating the establishment of smoother and more efficient exchanges of information related to COs, in September 2023 the WCO launched a project to develop an interconnectivity framework for the certificate of origin. An Informal Working Group (IWG), bringing together the intere...
New tools have recently been developed as part of the WCO’s Revenue Package, which collates all material relevant to improving revenue collection and compliance levels.
Diagnostic Tool on Tariff Classification, Valuation and Origin Work and...
Goods classification and origin determination of goods are closely interlinked. Typically, the requirements for determining origin are specified for individual products or product categories identified according to their respective Harmonized System (HS) code. Classification of goods is, therefor...
The WCO recently launched a new online platform, WCO Trade Tools (www.wcotradetools.org), which offers a single point of access to:
In addition to a user-friendly interface design and efficient search engines, the platform enables users to:
Harmonized System (HS)
Preferential Rules of Origin
More information
www.wcotradetools.org
publications@wcoomd.org
In 2022, the WCO Secretariat sent a questionnaire to the Organization’s Members to gather information on certification of origin processes and the digitalization of the certificate of origin (CO). Eighty-four Customs administrations responded, and a Study on the Digitalization of the Certif...
Out of 82 responding Customs administrations that operate an authority issuance system, 48 indicated that they implement both paper-based and electronic certificates of origin; 33 responded that they implement paper-based certificates of origin only, while one administration indicated that it imp...
The WCO published in October the Interconnectivity Framework for Certificat...
However, each party often has a different mechanism, with its own technical standards and specifications, dataset for e-COs, data structures, message formats and information flows. This lack of harmonization hinders the transmission of electronic data on the CO between two or more governments thr...
Five annexes were also prepared. One of them examines the data elements to be exchanged under the Push Model, for which the WCO has developed a Derived Information Package (DIP) for COs as part of the WCO Data Model. Another two models have also been annexed for additional information: one examin...
The WCO Secretariat has published an update of the Comparative Study on certification of origin, the previous version of which was issued in 2014, in order to t...
With regard to preferential rules of origin, the Study compares the certification provisions found in 209 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), as against 149 in 2014.
As was the case in 2014, more than half of the FTAs studied include some form of self-certification of origin, i.e. approved expor...
Most free trade agreements (FTAs) include provisions related to the cumulation of rules of origin. Simply put, such provisions allow parties to an FTA to use products originating in a country which is another party to the same FTA, or in countries which are not linked by an FTA or are linked by a...
The document consists of the following three main sections:
All strategic goals with regard to Tariff and Trade Affairs (TTA) have been successfully accomplished over the past year. This was evidenced by the significant workload of the WCO Secretariat’s TTA Directorate in 2016, with 45 days of meetings held, more than 4,000 pages of docume...
WCO Revenue Package and advance rulings
The WCO continued to assist its Members in implementing the Revenue Package, which provides guidance and best practices for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of revenue collection, as well ...
Nomenclature and classification
The WCO continued to carry out its work on the uniform application of the Harmonized System (HS), with the adoption of numerous classification decisions and intensified capacity building ef...
Technical assistance
Capacity building activities included the organization of eight training workshops:
In December 2021, the WCO Secretariat and the European Commission signed a partnership agreement establishing a programme on the implementation and application of rules of origin in Africa, commonly dubbed the EU-WCO Rules of Origin Africa Programme. This article p...
Supporting the AfCFTA Secretariat
In the inception phase, the focus of the RoO Africa Programme team has been on supporting the AfCFTA Secretariat and the AfCFTA Sub-Commi...
China Customs plays a key role in the administration of rules of origin, from their formulation to their implementation. Insiders who follow trade and Customs reforms in China may have noticed the emergence, in recent years, of new expressions and terms in this dom...
Exporters can submit their certificate application in paper copy or electronically, either by connecting to the International Trade Single Window System or by visiting the “Internet + Customs” website. Once the application has been examined and approved, China Customs notifies the exporter. I...
The authors of this article argue that harmonization should be high on the agenda both of those who make, and of those who enforce, legislation. To illustrate, they explain some of the issues faced by businesses due to the lack of harmonization of rules, or to the ...
When drafting the PSR, negotiators must therefore decide which version of the Harmonized System is being used. Sometimes, this information is explicitly contained in the agreement text itself. Usually, however, that is not the case, and importers and exporters are left to deduce which version is ...
In the International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures (Revised Kyoto Convention), the WCO defines “rules of origin” (RoO) as “the specific provisions, developed from principles established by national legislation or int...
Some free trade agreements (FTAs) also contain specific provisions aimed at boosting trade in environmental goods and their input products, including through differential tariffs applied to six-digit HS codes that specify particular environmental goods and/or subheadings containing both environme...
Embedding circular economy principles in the RoO
The most advanced area of environmentally conscious RoO focuses on provisions that promote circular economy principles. Al...
Machine learning, i.e. the process of teaching a computer system how to make accurate predictions when fed data, can help Customs administrations to identify revenue fraud or other illegal activities. In this article, TTEK, a technology solutions firm, explains how...
At the time of writing, there are 164 countries that are members of the WTO; the most recent addition being Afghanistan in July 2016. In addition, several other countries have chosen voluntarily to adopt the Agreement as the basis for determining Customs value. To meet the terms of their internat...
The WCO Secretariat organized the second edition of its Global Origin Conference, held from 10 to 12 March 2021, with the objective of stimulating the exchange of knowledge on the management and implementation of rules of origin, both from a Customs and a trade ope...
A study on the use of FTAs by European importers[2] was presented during the Conference. It showed that company ...
Lack of clarity and consistency is what really determines whether an FTA achieves its objectives or not
As Customs administrations play a key role in the administration of...
The following article is not intended to be a scholarly or even comprehensive review of past or current activities under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Rules of Origin, or a detailed analysis of the differences between preferential versus non-prefere...
The Costs
Presenters at the recent WCO Global Origin Conference outlined many business challenges associated with the inherent uncertainty of non-preferential rules of origin and many of their financial and non-financial ...
This article looks at the close relationship that exists between rules of origin (ROO) and goods classification work. It argues that a change in tariff classification should remain the predominant criteria for expressing substantial transformation, and that the rev...
Impact of a technical update
From an origin expert point of view, HS amendments are not always welcomed. Each time the HS is reviewed and a new edition released, countries must, on average, update perhaps...
Binding Origin Information (BOI) refers to a written decision issued by a Customs administration that certifies the origin of goods. Also known as an “advance ruling regarding the origin of goods”, such a decision is usually binding on the applicant and on the Customs authorities for a given ...
BOI in Germany
German Customs issued 1,239 Binding Origin Information decisions in 2020. This number has remained around the same level over the past few years. The vast majority of decisions were related to the application and interpreta...
The International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures (Kyoto Convention) entered into force in 1974. To keep pace with the evolution of governments and international trade, the Kyoto Convention was revised in the 1990s and entered into force as the Revised Kyo...
In its current state, Specific Annex K offers a low level of detail and has been ratified by only a few Members; as a result, it amounts to little more than guidance regarding some aspects of rules of origin. In the absence of a multilateral instrument, non-preferential rules of origin remain a ...