FACILITATING INTRA-OIC TRADE:
Improving the Efficiency of the Customs Procedures in the OIC Member States
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• The provision to interested parties of all the necessary information regarding Customs
laws, regulations, administrative guidelines, procedures and practices,
• The adoption of modern techniques such as risk management and audit-based controls,
and the maximum practicable use of information technology,
• Co-operation wherever appropriate with other national authorities, other Customs
administrations and the trading communities,
• The implementation of relevant international standards,
• The provision to affected parties of easily accessible processes of administrative and
judicial review. (Source: RKC)
Revised Kyoto Convention is composed of General Annex and Special Annexes.
Countries acceding to the Convention shall adopt the General Annex. However,
adoption of the Special Annexes is not mandatory. Among the 179 Members of the
WCO, 91 of them are party to the Convention as of September 2013. Besides the RKC,
there other WCO Conventions, declarations and recommendations adopted for
improving the efficiency of Customs Administrations.
-WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement
Trade Facilitation came into the agenda of WTO by the decision of Singapore
Conference. The Conference agreed to direct the Council for Trade in Goods to
undertake exploratory and analytical work on the simplification of trade procedures. In
Doha (2001), Ministerial Conference requested the Council for Trade to review and
clarify and improve relevant aspects of Articles V, VIII and X of the GATT 1994 and
identify the trade facilitation needs and priorities of members, in particular developing
and least-developed countries.
In 2004, the General Council of WTO has decided to initiate the negotiations on trade
facilitation, which is also known as “July Package”. According to the decision, the
negotiations would aim at clarifying the relevant aspects of Article V (Freedom of
Transit), Article VIII (Fees and Formalities connected with Importation and
Exportation) and Article X (Publication and Administration of Trade Regulations). The
Council also decided that, the negotiations should take into consideration the needs of
the developing countries and the LDCs and underlined the requirement for technical
assistance and capacity building support to these countries to implement the
commitments resulting from the negotiations. In line with the decision, Negotiating
Group on Trade was established in 2004.
After continuous negotiations for more than 9 years, the WTO Trade Facilitation
Agreement was concluded by the decision of the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference
held on 3-6 December 2013 in Bali, Indonesia. Moreover, a Preparatory Committee on
Trade Facilitation is established, open to all WTO Members, which will ensure the entry
into force of the Agreement and its implementation (See Box 2 in next page).