The Data Model Projects Team concluded the new version of the WCO Data Model at its October 2018 meeting

15 October 2018

The DMPT Meeting, chaired by Mr. Sergio Alencar of Brazilian Customs, took place from 1 to 5 October 2018 at WCO Headquarters. Fifty-four participants, from Member administrations, international organizations and the private sector, attended the Meeting.

The DMPT concluded a new version of the WCO Data Model (WCO DM), namely version 3.8.0, and agreed on the timeline for the quality assurance, production and publication of this new release. This new version of the WCO DM is expected to be published by the end of 2018. It includes further developments of the WCO DM based on 31 Data Maintenance Requests (DMRs) which have been submitted and accepted. A new structure component, namely the Overall Information Structure that contains the overall class structure as a basis for electronic messages, has been included to the WCO DM.

The DMPT also finalized and agreed on the draft WCO DM Business Guide, a Guidance which contains a plain language explanation of the WCO DM, its use and its relationship with other international instruments and standards, as well as providing practical guidance on the planning and implementation phases of the WCO DM adoption process. In addition, the DMPT, together with other Maritime stakeholders, have successfully completed the work to review and update the International Maritime Organization (IMO) FAL Compendium. The updated Compendium would be reported to the 43rd Meeting of the IMO Facilitation Committee in April 2019 for its consideration.

The DMPT concluded its meeting by agreeing on the new scope of work for 2018/2019 that include several important tasks, inter alia: the review and update of the WCO DM DMR procedures, the development of a Syntax Strategy for the WCO DM, the review and update of the WCO DM Conformity Framework, the linking of the WCO DM Information Packages and Business Process Model, the development of WCO DM implementation support strategy, the development of maintenance model for the IMO) FAL Compendium as well as the development of XML Message Implementation Guide (API) for the Advance Passenger Information (API).