On 7 March 2022, a meeting was held between the Intendent of the Customs Administration of Guatemala (SAT) and WCO Vice-Chair to the Americas and the Caribbean, Mr. Werner Ovalle, and the SECO-WCO Global Trade Facilitation Programme (GTFP) at the WCO Headquarters in Brussels.

Within the framework of an official visit of the Superintendent of Guatemala to the WCO, this meeting provided the opportunity to exchange views on the successful closing of the GTFP Light-Touch Intervention (LTI) in Guatemala, where the GTFP supported the Customs modernization of Guatemala to close its compliance gaps and accede the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC). As a result, the Customs Administration has enhanced its trade facilitation measures and was able to reach such important milestone with the deposit of their instrument of accession to the RKC in 10 March 2022.

Also, this encounter allowed both parties to coordinate the future implementation of a Regional LTI to provide support for enhancing RKC compliance in Central America, where Guatemala accepted to serve as regional contact point for this Intervention, involving not only its capacity as WCO Regional Vice-Chair, but also within the Customs Committee of the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA, for its Spanish acronym).

For more information on the GTFP, please, contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org