The World Customs Organization (WCO) has announced that its 23rd Revised Kyoto Convention Management Committee (RKC/MC) held from 16 to 18 December 2020 had paved the way for Step 2 of the RKC review process. According to the WCO over 120 participants joined the virtual Meeting via the KUDO platform.
The Meeting was also marked by the transfer of the mandate to review the RKC from the Working Group on the Comprehensive Review of the RKC (WGRKC) to the RKC/MC.
In his opening remarks the WCO Deputy Secretary General welcomed Contracting Parties and observers to the 23rd Meeting of the RKC/MC. Congratulating the WGRKC on its finalisation of Step 1 of the “Four-Step framework” and submitting its recommendations to be approved by this meeting, he further emphasised that the RKC/MC meeting was expected to discuss and offer guidance on the way forward of the RKC review, as the review process would be advancing to “Step 2”.
The WCO Director of the Compliance and Facilitation Directorate welcomed the accession to the RKC by three new Contracting Parties including Maldives, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and Tajikistan. He indicated that, since the previous RKC/MC Meeting, the number of Contracting Parties had increased to 124. He also said that more were expected in the future.
David Coyles (Australia Customs) and Yves Patrick Tchami (Cameroon Customs) were unanimously re-elected Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson, respectively, of the Management Committee.
During the three days of fruitful discussions, the Meeting approved the final Report of the WGRKC with its recommendations and agreed to advance the RKC review process to Step 2 of the four-step framework, which will entail the assessment of the developed recommendations against the RKC and existing WCO instruments and tools.
In particular, the Meeting discussed the Business Case for the continuation of the RKC review under the 'four-step framework' and acknowledged that the unspent appropriations for the RKC review would allow the WCO Secretariat to support the RKC review until the end of June 2022 to facilitate Step 3, as well as to support Step 4 through the development of texts. The RKC/MC instructed the Secretariat to prepare a Business Case for the 105th Session of the Finance Committee in order to outline how the remaining appropriations could be used for advancing the RKC review process.
Story by: Riaan de Lange