With sponsorship from the Customs Co-operation Fund/Saudi Arabia, the WCO and the Saudi Customs jointly organized a Regional HS Expert Workshop for the Customs Administrations of the North African, Near and Middle East (MENA) Region, focusing on training of Harmonized System-trainers to enhance their capacity in the area of the HS and tariff classification.

The Workshop took place at the Regional Training Centre in Riyadh, from 20 to 24 April 2013, and was attended by Customs officers from coming from Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.

A wide range of HS-related matters were addressed and participants deliberated on a number of issues related to the HS Convention, such as the rights and obligations of HS Contracting Parties, best practices for organising tariff classification work, and the "mechanics of classification", i.e., the fundamental principles and practicalities of HS classification to ensure correct and uniform application of the HS.

The Workshop was part of the activities of the WCO to strengthen the training capacity on HS classification for the Arabic speaking countries and provided an opportunity to put on the stage the WCO learning platform CLiKC!, with the WCO’s standardized training tools, such as the HS-training kit and the e-learning modules, to provide appropriate HS-training.