The EAC regional Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) Programme benefitted from a significant boost as the Uganda Revenue Authority successfully launched the EAC Regional AEO identifier in its electronic Customs Management System on 31st of August 2017. The regional AEO identifier features a unique regional reference code as well as the EAC regional AEO logo.

This major breakthrough will facilitate the implementation of the EAC regional AEO programme. Indeed, thanks to the inclusion of this identifier on the declaration, Customs officers across the Uganda Customs posts will now be able to easily distinguish regional AEOs from other economic operators and hence, be able to provide the relevant preferential treatment to these regional AEOs .

While URA is the first country in the region to achieve this milestone, four other countries of the EAC region (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania) have committed to deploy the regional AEO identifier on their systems by the end of September 2017. Once this critical landmark is achieved, the level of application of the regional AEO benefits across the region will be enhanced and customs clearance time of regional AEO declarations be reduced, hence contributing to regional economic development.

The WCO provides support to the EAC region with the development and implementation of the EAC Regional AEO Programme under the auspices of the WCO-EAC CREATe project, funded by Sweden.

For more information about the WCO-EAC CREATe Project, please contact Mr. Richard Chopra, WCO-Sweden Programme Director, Richard.Chopra@wcoomd.org