At the invitation of HE. the Director General of  Abu Dhabi Customs, the WCO Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Ricardo Treviño Chapa, attended the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Authorized Economic Operator Programme (UAEO) Webinar on 7 December 2020. This high-level virtual event aimed to modernize the UAEO programme to reflect new realities, and to keep it aligned with economic development objectives of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and in compliance with the WCO SAFE Framework of standards.

At this occasion, the Deputy Secretary General highlighted the importance of the AEO programme to strengthen the continued cooperation between Customs and the Private sector. The Director of International Relations for UAE, Mr. Suoud Al Agroubi, explained the nature of the UAEO programme as a customs-business win-win partnership and gave an update on the AEO implementation, Mutual Recognition Arrangements and the SAFE Framework of standards in UAE.

The WCO Deputy Secretary General also gave a presentation on the ongoing work related to the AEO 2.0 concept, stressing the importance to harmonize the implementation of AEO programmes to move towards a universal recognition of these certified operators. He also mentioned that the programme should expand to also include e-commerce stakeholders while leveraging emerging technologies such as data analytics and blockchains.

At the end of his presentation, he stated that the regional and plurilateral approaches to AEO programmes and MRAs (Mutual Recognition Agreements) would be other areas to look into in order to enhance and fully leverage the benefits of AEO programmes. He added that one of the key benefits of such regional approaches to AEO programmes and MRAs is that they ultimately lead to the standardization and harmonization of AEO programmes through self-assessments and potentially a validation mechanism.