Achievement 3- AEO programs in the OIC member countries offer a diverse set of benefits

across the board.

The attractiveness of an AEO program is closely related to the benefits it offers for its holders.

The OIC AEO programs exhibit a diverse set of benefits that provide concrete reductions in

costs of international trade and improvements in gains from it through trade facilitation

measures such as a higher degree of predictability, simplified data requirements and a

plethora of measures to expedite cargo release, to reduce transit time, and to lower storage

costs.

Achievement 4- All OIC Customs Authorities are aware of the importance of private sector

partnership and the promotion of the program.

AEO programs are essentially voluntary and require continued cooperation between the

Customs Authority and private sector. Formal and informal consultations with the private

sector representatives in design and implementation of the AEO programs in OIC are expected

to increase the success of the operational programs. There exists a high degree of convergence

across countries in terms of these factors.

Achievement 5- Client relations management that is used by a number of OIC AEO

programs increases the attractiveness and the viability of the program.

The idea and application of having a designated expert in the Customs Authority to answer the

questions of AEO holders is very effective as it reduces the unnecessary and fruitless

endeavors of the companies in Customs matters and increases the sense of belonging to the

program. However, client relations management practice requires the Customs Authorities to

cope with higher demand for personnel as the numbers of AEO holders in the countries rise.

The second part of this section deals with the challenges that are identified after carefully

examining the survey responses and the comparator matrix. Table 3.19 reports least

commonly incorporated sub-variables in the OIC AEO programs, which fundamentally point

out to the difficulties that need to be overcome for successful AEO design and implementation.

Challenge 1- Low incidence of consultation with Customs prior to application may

lengthen the authorization timeline and increase the cost.

There seems to be a rather low level of consultation in the pre-application period in many OIC

AEO programs. Only Jordan, Oman and Uganda have formalized processes where applicants

consult with the Customs Authority prior to application. This consultation may be in the form

of a compulsory expression of interest or a formalized voluntary meeting between the

applicant and the Customs Authority. Having a priori consultation with the Customs may help

the applicant reduce mistakes during the application process and thus shorten the

authorization timeline. Moreover, the applicant can save from external consultant costs.

Challenge 2- Lengthy AEO approval times may reduce predictability in the approval

process and diminish interest in AEO status.

Related to Challenge 1, even though almost all OIC members have very similar application

procedures, the timelines of authorization are somewhat different as reported in Table 3.15.

Oman seems to be the fastest with 30 days followed by Jordan and Indonesia with 60 days.

Oman and Jordan are among the countries with formalized pre-application consultancy

procedures. These countries are followed by Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco with 90, 120 and

240 days, respectively. Uganda is a significant outlier with at least 900 days to authorize

despite the existence of pre-application consultancy procedures.