The World Customs Organisation (WCO) and the Azerbaijan Customs Service have announced that the 10th annual WCO Picard Conference will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 08 to 10 September 2015.
They have called for submission of research at the conference, which should focus on Customs or, more globally, the regulation, dynamics and practices of the international trade of goods. Conference topics will include, but are not necessarily limited to, the connection between global value chains (GVC) and Customs procedures, taxation and other revenue matters, and smuggling.
GVC entails “the full range of activities that are required to bring a product from its conception, through its design, its sourced raw materials and intermediate inputs, its marketing, its distribution and its support to the final consumer”. GVC is of interest to Customs professionals due to the increased fragmentation of production processes at the international level and, as a consequence, circulation of intermediary goods. More focus on GVC would identify new ways of analysing the participation of Customs in international trade and globalisation.
Papers should be submitted by no later than 01 June 2015.