At the invitation of the “Cercle Collin de Sussy”, the WCO Secretary General (SG) addressed the issue of Customs and goods’ traceability at the Symposium on “Traceability and Customs compliance of international trade flows”, held at the Ministry of Finance in Paris, France, on 04 November.
The “Cercle Collin de Sussy” was established in 1990 by several former officials from the Directorate General of French Customs on the initiative of its founder President. It is named after the first Director General of French Customs who held office from 1801 to 1812. It acts as a think tank on the challenges faced by Customs in a more and more globalized trade environment, analysing facts and legislations.
The WCO SG explained that Customs had been collecting information on movement of goods at borders, ensuring their traceability, thereby developing connectivity among trade operators.
The WCO SG mentioned recent developments in three areas: (i) pre-arrival information which is now available and has moved borders upstream; (ii) enabling tracking and tracing technology used by Customs; and (iii) traceability systems developed by the private sector and their potential compatibility with Customs systems.
The WCO then spoke about the challenges faced by Customs in their coordination efforts with other public stakeholders, both domestically through the Single Window supported by the WCO Data Model, and internationally through potential facilitation by the Unique Consignment Reference (UCR) for identifying consignments. Another challenge is maximising the value of data use through data mining by Customs officials, as well as an open data policy that could grant the private sector and academia access to data while respecting confidentiality. These challenges could provide opportunities for both Customs and the private sector in the future.