Customs and ports collaboration is essential to accelerate digitalisation and achieve smoother and more efficient supply chains, customs and port authorities have said at the virtual workshop on “Best Practices in Customs and Ports Collaboration”” of the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).
The inauguration of the event was chaired by Captain Subramaniam Karuppiah, President of the IAPH, and Ricardo Treviño Chapa, Deputy Secretary General of the WCO, who have highlighted the importance of strengthening close collaboration between these two parties, which play a key role in international border crossing procedures.
In this sense, the Captain Karuppiah He referred to the Memorandum of Understanding between the two Organisations (signed in 1987) and “the need to update it considering how much the world has evolved since then”. He explained that cooperation between port authorities and customs should be strengthened, since in practice “reality often reveals redundant and uncoordinated processes, as well as a lack of mutual understanding”.
Faced with the same concern, Ricardo Trevino He added that “greater cooperation was needed, taking into account the fundamental importance of maritime transport, as it accounts for a large proportion of cross-border cargo traffic worldwide.” He stressed that “a lack of Customs-Port cooperation could lead to inefficiencies in the maritime sector and result in delays and higher logistics costs, negatively impacting the entire economy.” He therefore recommended addressing “challenges related to cooperation between these two authorities, for example by building trust, identifying operational and governance issues, compiling good practices and lessons learned and developing a roadmap for cooperation.”
"The workshop is a first step towards the joint development of international guidelines on Customs-Port cooperation to accelerate digitalization agendas", stressed the Deputy Secretary General of the WCO.
On the occasion, the following were held: presentations to explain the history behind the renewal of their cooperation and the instruments in place to facilitate this renewal. Within this framework, Tejo Kusuma, from the OMA, noted that the Coordinated Border Management tools, as well as the SAFE Framework of Standards, the Single Window Compendium and the Data Model, were aimed at strengthening collaboration with other government agencies and the private sector. He commented that important joint work had been initiated with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to align the IMO FAL Compendium with the WCO Data Model, thus strengthening data standardization. Meanwhile, Patrick Verhoeven, Managing Director of IAPH, He detailed the initiatives led to develop the digitalisation of procedures and data exchange, indicating that the main obstacles were related to the lack of trust between authorities and the complexity of regulatory environments, and that these problems could be addressed through appropriate collaboration.WCO Press Release)
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