Portuguese 

A WCO National Seminar on the Harmonized System was held in the Regional Training Centre (RTC) in Brasília, Brazil, from 3 to 7 June 2013. It was attended by 24 Customs officers from all over the country. The Undersecretary of Customs and International Relations of the Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil (RFB), Ernani Checcucci, highlihted the ongoing support of the WCO to meet the demands of Brazil in its capacity building initiatives and thanked the representative from the WCO Secretariat’s Directorate of Tariff and Trade Affairs for facilitating the high level discussions on tariff classification issues.

During the Seminar the group discussed the use and future prospects of the Harmonized System (HS) and some practical cases of tariff classification. Ernani Checcucci stressed the importance of the HS as the most widely used instrument of the WCO, responsible for the correct and uniform classification of goods – a key issue for Customs administrations and other relevant international trade stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. He also pointed out the need for the Brazil to have more Customs officers with greater knowledge of the subject, taking into account, inter alia, the "Single Portal of Foreign Trade"project already underway, which requires uniform and proper use of the HS.

Also present at the opening of the seminar were the Director-General of the School of Administration of the Ministry of Finance (ESAF), the Head of the Division of Tariff Classification and Nomenclature of the RFB, and the Manager of the RTC. All of them stressed the relevance of the Seminar and its contribution to the effectiveness of the work carried out by Brazilian Customs. The RTC in Brasília is a joint initiative of the WCO, the RFB and the ESAF, which addresses the need of the WCO Americas and the Caribbean region for continuous training in Customs matters.