Authorized Economic Operators
In the Islamic Countries:
Enhancing Customs-Traders Partnership
74
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.