The Private Sector Consultative Group (PSCG) met for the 41st time on 23 and 24 October 2017 at the WCO Headquarters. The meeting was chaired by John Mein from PROCOMEX, and Mr. Jaime King from IFCBA was presented as the newly-elected Vice-Chair. The group greeted four new members: The Association of Professional Customs Brokers of the Americas (ASAPRA), Expeditors, Fédération Maritime de Côte d' Ivoire (FEDERMAR), and the Pharmaceutical Security Institute (PSI). The meeting began with an orientation session for the new members by Ms Ana Hinojosa, WCO Director of Compliance and Facilitation.
The PSCG had a fruitful and meaningful dialogue with Mr. Kunio Mikuriya, WCO Secretary General followed by discussions with Mr Ping Liu, Mr. Ernani Checcucci and Mrs. Ana Hinojosa, WCO directors of Tariff and Trade Affairs, Capacity Building, and Compliance and Facilitation respectively. The Secretariat's current priorities, ongoing work and possible options for collaboration for the PSCG within the WCO activities were both presented and deliberated.
The group amongst others reviewed and discussed several WCO SAFE Working Group (SWG) issues, the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) implementation and the Performance Measurement priorities. The PSCG recognised the extensive inter-sessional work undertaken by the SAFE review subgroup and appreciated the updated list of benefits to trade and the proposal to include it in the SAFE Framework of Standard as Annex IV. In addition, the members were happy to be given the opportunity to contribute to the module on global supply chain in the AEO Validator's Training Module.