Proceedings of the 14th Meeting of
The COMCEC Trade Working Group
27
Annex 3: The Policy Recommendations
DRAFT POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS HIGHLIGHTED BY
14TH MEETING OF THE TRADE WORKING GROUP
The COMCEC Trade Working Group (TWG) has successfully held its 14th Meeting on October 24th,
2019 in Ankara, Turkey with the theme of “Improving Customs Transit Systems in the OIC Member
States.” During the Meeting, Trade Working Group, made deliberations for policy approximation
among the Member Countries regarding customs transit systems. The room document, prepared in
accordance with the main findings of the research report conducted specifically for the 14th Meeting
of the TWG and the answers of the Member Countries to the policy questions sent to the TWG focal
points by the COMCEC Coordination Office before the Meeting. During the Meeting, the participants
agreed on the policy recommendations included in the Room Document. The existing document
includes these policy recommendations highlighted during the Meeting.
The Member States of the TWG are kindly invited to communicate their observations on this
document, if there are any, to the COMCEC Coordination Office by November 4th, 2019. The
comments received before November 4 th, 2019 will be able to be incorporated into the Document.
After incorporating the Member States’ contributions, this document will be submitted to the 35th
Ministerial Meeting of the COMCEC to be held on 25-28 November 2019 in İstanbul, as an outcome
of the 14th TWG Meeting.
Policy Advice 1: Designing an appropriate legal and procedural framework for national customs
administrations through, among others, utilizing international conventions on customs transit
regimes
One of the preconditions for an efficient international transit application is to have an appropriate legal
and procedural framework assigned to and enforced by the relevant national authorities, in particular
national customs administrations. Besides national legal framework, the relevant international
organizations (i.e.WTO and WCO), international conventions and standards (i.e. WCO Revised Kyoto
Convention (RKS), WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and WCO SAFE Framework of
Standards (SAFE FoS)) encourage governments to conclude and implement bilateral and regional
agreements with other governments/customs administrations for cooperation on Customs Transit
Regimes (CTR).
As long as these agreements in line with the relevant international instruments, standards and
recommendations, they would facilitate international transit. This is particularly important due to;
 Low participation of OIC MS in international organizations related to CTR
 Lack of full implementation of the international instruments, standards and recommendation
arising from international organizations;
 Inconsistency between national legislations, customs codes and regulations related to CTR
with the International standards and recommendations;