On 17 July the G20 leaders recognised the work in combatting Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in documents agreed following the 2017 G20 Hamburg Summit. The Secretary General of the WCO welcomed this recognition and invites WCO Members to pursue efforts to tackle this issue and to actively participate in the activities undertaken by the WCO on this topic.
The 2016 G20 Hangzhou Meeting welcomed the “communication and coordination with the World Customs Organisation for a study report” to address “cross-border financial flows derived from illicit activities, including deliberate mis-invoicing, which hampers the mobilisation of domestic resources for development.” Following this mandate, and after members’ deliberation, the WCO produced an Action Plan to capture the strategy to counter IFFs and this has been communicated to the German G20 Presidency and the G20 Heads of Customs.
The Action Plan will bring special attention to the question of trade mis-invoicing and also touch on other methods such as transfer mispricing, tax evasion and avoidance, cash smuggling, and informal funds transfer systems. WCO Secretary General stated that “WCO will continue its action plan to combat IFFs and further enhance its coordination with the G20”, adding that “the WCO Council has, during its 129th/130th Sessions, identified IFFs as one of the six main priorities for Customs Community, along with Trade Facilitation, Security, E-commerce, Customs-Tax Cooperation and Performance Measurement.”
