Under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Public Forum 2024 (PF24), the World Customs Organization (WCO) hosted a panel session on 12 September 2024 focusing on digitalization, Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs), Single Window and Authorized Economic Operators (AEOs).
One of the WTO’s largest annual outreach events, the Public Forum took place this year from 10 to 13 September 2024 at WTO Headquarters in Geneva. The event brought together more than 4000 representatives from civil society, academia, business, the media, government, and inter-governmental organizations and more than 600 speakers in over 130 sessions. This year’s Public Forum, titled Re-globalization: Better Trade for a Better World, explored how re-globalization can help make trade more inclusive and ensure that its benefits reach more people.
The WCO has been playing an active role in the WTO Public Forum for a number of years by organizing sessions, providing speakers and sharing information, with the aim of raising the profile of Customs and its relevance in cross-border trade.
Given the WCO’s theme for 2024, “Customs Engaging Traditional and New Partners with Purpose,” this event was a great opportunity for high-level engagement with the trade, academics and others to reiterate the importance of Customs for international trade. “Customs for Better Trade & Better Trade for a Better World”.
The panel session hosted by the WCO “Leveraging digitalization in Customs for inclusive trade” was comprised of speakers from Customs, the WTO and the private sector. The session was moderated by Dr. Boriana Rukanova from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
WCO Secretary General Ian Saunders began by highlighting several WCO tools that support Customs in the area of digitalization. These tools, including the Revised Kyoto Convention, the WCO Data Model, Single Window, Coordinated Border Management and others, highlight the important role Customs plays in creating a more equitable trading environment. The Secretary General noted, “To ensure that digitalization becomes a winning strategy, Customs administrations must invest in capacity building, foster international cooperation, and embrace innovation. With WCO support, Customs can enhance border efficiency and contribute to a secure and inclusive global trading environment.” Having more and robust Single Window Systems is valuable for predictability, efficiency and transparency of Customs processes for everyone, including governments and MSMEs. The Secretary General also announced an important joint initiative of WCO, WTO and ICC to develop a comprehensive paper aimed at assisting WCO Members in making their AEO programmes more scalable and accessible to MSMEs, which is indeed a significant step towards creating a more inclusive and supportive global trading environment for such companies, ensuring they can fully benefit from the opportunities that AEO programmes offer.
Angela Ellard, Deputy Director-General of the WTO, spoke about WTO members ’ digitalization initiatives as well as how the WTO supports them to overcome the challenges in their journey towards digitalization. The Deputy Director General highlighted that digitalization is a very important part of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) implementation and the WTO Trade Facilitation Committee and TFA Facility play an important role in terms of experience sharing and capacity building support to WTO members in this regard. Also brought to participants' attention was the role of the informal Working Group on MSMEs that supports them in joining AEO programmes and becoming more competitive in international markets. She also highlighted the importance of Single Window systems to enhancing global trade inclusiveness.
Niti Wityatem, Deputy Director-General and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Thai Customs Department, discussed his administration’s ongoing digitalization projects. Among the main challenges in this process are the absence of domestic regulations, lack of budget and public awareness. The CIO noted that the Thai AEO programme was developed based on WCO standards in 2011 and welcomes companies of all sizes, including MSMEs. The ASEAN Single Window and online exchange of origin documents among ten ASEAN members were highlighted as regional success stories in the movement toward digitalization.
Valerie Picard, Head of Trade at International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and member of WCO Private Sector Consultative Group (PSCG), talked about the importance of cooperation between public and private sectors in the implementation of the TFA and in digitalization. The ICC underlined that it is important to take the private sector on board when developing digitalization procedures because they are end users of the system. Reference was made to the different levels of development in terms of differences in national legal frameworks. The ICC also highlighted the importance of the Digital Standards Initiative (DSI), which contributes to the digitalization of trade and Customs as well as to the support of MSMEs. Noting that standardizing data requirements is essential for MSMEs, the ICC emphasized that a uniform approach to data would also facilitate the trade finance for these companies. Increasing MSMEs’ awareness of AEO programmes was highlighted as an important element in bringing more of these companies into such programmes.
More on the WTO Public Forum 2024 and its sessions, including WCO session No. 67, can be found here. The recording of the session is also available here.