On 31 March Guyana became the 172nd WCO Member to commit to the implementation of the SAFE Framework of Standards (FoS) to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade.
This action follows a series of concrete steps taken by the Guyana Customs to align with international standards, including the joining earlier last year of the WCO’s Anti-Corruption and Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme to implement the WCO’s Revised Arusha Declaration concerning Good Governance and Integrity. The Customs community has long accepted that integrity is a cross-cutting issue, and this includes the implementation of the SAFE FoS where governance aspects must be scrutinised to ensure they afford sufficient accountability and transparency. WCO Members already have several tools at their disposal to support this, and under the WCO A-CIP Programme Guyana will receive technical assistance and capacity building to aid them through this new phase.
The WCO strongly encourages those eligible to commit to the SAFE FoS as soon as possible given this instrument’s significance for Customs, and, above all, to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade.