From 1 to 5 July 2013, the WCO organized an accreditation workshop for Spanish-speaking Technical and Operational Advisors on the topic of Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This event gathered 9 pre-selected Customs officers from the Americas and Caribbean region, thanks to the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of Japan.

During the 5-day intensive programme, experts from Colombia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Argentina demonstrated their skills and abilities as experts in the area of AEO. The session was jointly facilitated by a WCO Secretariat representative and a WCO accredited expert. 6 colleagues successfully passed the workshop as step 1 of the accreditation workshop, and will soon show their facilitation skills during in-field missions to complete the accreditation process.

This workshop has been a major achievement, esp. for the AMS Region, aiming at increasing the regional pool of experts available to provide WCO assistance in Spanish, as well as contributing to equip administrations with well-qualified experts exposed to new international collaboration opportunities. Another important aspect was the strengthening of the regional AEO experts’ network, which will be maintained via the WCO CLiKC! platform and support further regional efforts.