The WCO’s work on cross-border E-Commerce is moving ahead with a view to addressing the challenges and needs of various stakeholders in the e-commerce chain when it comes to cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions/shipments.
Moving forward, the WCO has launched an E-Commerce web-corner on its website, which is aimed to act as a single reference point for e-commerce-related information, including the ongoing work of the WCO’s multi-stakeholder Working Group on E-Commerce (WGEC).
The WGEC is currently focused on the four identified work packages, namely Trade Facilitation and Simplification of Procedures, Safety and Security, Revenue Collection, and Measurement and Analysis with a view to developing recommendations/guidelines/framework on cross-border e-commerce as well as enhancement/updating-related WCO instruments and tools.
Based on a survey among its Members, the WCO recently published a ‘Study Report on E-Commerce’ which analyses Customs administrations’ practices as well as their initiatives related to the processing of cross-border low-value E-Commerce to address some of the challenges stemming from growing low-value and small shipments.
As part of its continued work, the WCO is going to publish a series of articles on different facets of E-Commerce. The first in this series is an interesting article written by the WCO Director of Compliance and Facilitation that brings out some of the underlying issues both from a Customs perspective as well as a consumer perspective.
Furthermore, at the upcoming sessions of the WCO Permanent Technical Committee (PTC) to be held from 03 to 07 April, a special session on E-Commerce (E-Commerce Day) will further explore this topic through four thematic workshops on 05 April.