The World Customs Organization (WCO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Turkey is among the 17th founding members of WCO.
The WCO is noted for its work in areas covering the development of international conventions, instruments, and tools on topics such as commodity classification, valuation, rules of origin, collection of customs revenue, supply chain security, international trade facilitation, customs enforcement activities, combating counterfeiting in support of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), integrity promotion, and delivering sustainable capacity building to assist with customs reforms and modernization. The WCO maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) goods nomenclature, and administers the technical aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Customs Valuation and Rules of Origin.
In 1947, thirteen European countries established a Study Group to examine customs issues identified by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This work led to the adoption in 1948 of the Convention establishing the Customs Co-operation Council (CCC), which was signed in Brussels. On January 26, 1953 the CCC’s inaugural session took place with the participation of 17 founding members. Turkey is the founder member of the Customs Co-operation Council.
WCO membership subsequently expanded to cover all regions of the globe. In 1994, the organization adopted its current name, the World Customs Organization. Today, WCO members are responsible for customs controls in 180 countries representing more than 98 per cent of all international trade. Palestine has been latest member country since she joined as of 24 March 2015.
The WCO is internationally acknowledged as the global center of customs expertise and plays a leading role in the discussion, development, promotion and implementation of modern customs systems and procedures. It is responsive to the needs of its members and its strategic environment, and its instruments and best-practice approaches are recognized as the basis for sound customs administration throughout the world.
The WCO’s primary objective is to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of member customs administrations, thereby assisting them to contribute successfully to national development goals, particularly revenue collection, national security, trade facilitation, community protection, and collection of trade statistics.
The WCO Secretariat is headed by a Secretary General, who is elected by the WCO membership to a five-year term. The current WCO Secretary General is Kunio Mikuriya from Japan, who took office on 1 January 2009. The WCO is governed by the Council, which brings together all Members of the Organization once a year, in a meeting chaired by an elected Chairperson. Additional strategic and management guidance is provided by the Policy Commission and the Finance Committee. Several WCO committees, such as the Harmonized System Committee, the Permanent Technical Committee, the Technical Committee on Customs Valuation, Technical Committee on Rules of Origin, the Capacity Building Committee, and the SAFE Working Group, provide a platform for developing instruments and best practices on customs competencies.
In order to achieve its objectives, the WCO has adopted a number of customs instruments, including but not limited to the following:
1) The International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System
2) The International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs procedures
3) ATA Convention and the Convention on Temporary Admission (Istanbul Convention)
4) The Arusha Declaration on Customs Integrity
5) The SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade
Source: Ministry of Customs and Trade
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