WCO Seminar Commits to Promote Revised Kyoto Convention in Latin America
On November 7-8, 2011, the World Customs Organization organized a seminar on the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) with the theme "Security of the Supply Chain and Trade Facilitation: Challenges of the RKC." At the conclusion of the seminar, participants adopted the Sao Paulo Declaration, committing them to taking measures to promote accession to the RKC.
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(The RKC is an international agreement that provides a set of comprehensive Customs procedures to facilitate legitimate international trade. It deals with key principles of simplified and harmonized Customs procedures, such as predictability, transparency, due process, maximum use of information technology, and modern Customs techniques (e.g. risk management, pre-arrival information, and post-clearance audit). The RKC was adopted in 1999 and entered into force in 2006. There are a total of 781Contracting Parties to the RKC. The WCO has encouraged its Members to accede to the RKC, believing that more benefits would accrue as a result of early RKC implementation by more economies in a coordinated way.)
Customs Administrations of 12 Countries/Regional Groups Attended Seminar
Customs administrations of 12 countries, including eight Directors General, and the heads of two regional groups, COMALEP and CCLEC2, joined the seminar together with representatives from business and Customs brokers in the Latin American and Caribbean region to discuss issues relating to accessions to the RKC in the region.
Participants Adopted Declaration to Promote Benefits of RKC in Latin America
The seminar participants adopted the Sao Paulo Declaration (available here), which states that the WCO and Latin America's private sector organizations participating in the Conference and representing the main sectors related to international trade in Latin America will take joint and coordinated action to promote the benefits of the RKC. Furthermore, they will seek to achieve the consensus needed to increase the number of Contracting Parties to the RKC in the region, while fully respecting national legislations.
1The WCO has 76 Contracting Parties listed on its website. However, Iran and Rwanda became the 77th and 78th Contracting Parties, respectively. (See ITT's Online Archives 11072209 and 11112247 for summaries.)
2The Multilateral Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Customs General Directions of Latin America, Spain and Portugal (COMALEP) and the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC).
WCO report on the benefits of the RKC is available here.