At the invitation of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) and Angolan Customs, the WCO participated in the 29th Meeting of the Council of the Customs Director Generals of the CPLP held in Luanda, Angola, from 28 to 31 October 2014.
The meeting aimed to strengthen the cooperation among CPLP countries in Customs issues as well as to evaluate the achievements of the four years PICAT cooperation programme, which is coming to end in 2015.
The opening remarks were made by the Finance Secretary of State of the Angolan Government, Ms. Valentina Filipe, who stressed the importance of almost 30 years of cooperation among the CPLP, which started with a number of 3 and now is composed of 9 countries. She added that this cooperation supports CPLP countries in harmonizing their Customs procedures by using WCO instruments and tools such as RKC, HS and others. She also underlined that the CPLP successfully translated those and other WCO tools into Portuguese in order to be spread and understood even more easily.
Discussions at the meeting dealt among others with the implementation of WTO TFA measures, where all CPLP countries showed their interest in implementing the provisions of this agreement although it had not yet entered into force. The representative of the WCO made a presentation on the instruments and tools that the WCO has created over many years in support of trade facilitation and which are widely used today to implement trade facilitation measures.
The WCO will continue to work closely with the CPLP on Customs reform and modernization, including in the trade facilitation area, and wishes to again express its appreciation for the CPLP support in the translation of its tools and instruments into Portuguese.