The World Customs Organization (WCO), with the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF) EURO-Customs, organized a five-day National Workshop on the Revised Kyoto Convention to improve the efficiency and monitoring of activities of simplified Customs procedures for the Customs Service of the Republic of Moldova (CSRM) in Chisinau from 20 to 24 May 2019.

22 Customs officials attended the workshop, largely represented by head office, as well three major Customs houses located in the central, northern and southern parts of Moldova. The main objective of the Workshop was to familiarize Moldova Customs officers with the RKC accession process and implementation, and to further improve their efficiency and monitoring of activities of simplified Customs procedures, taking into consideration the EU legislative aspects.

Bearing in mind the level of CSRM developments under WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) and simplified procedure initiatives, the five-day workshop mainly focused in areas of interest to the CSRM: (i) Accession to the RKC; (ii) General Annex (GA) and Specific Annexes of the RKC; (iii) Analysis of the implementation status of Section I of the WTO-TFA; (iv) EU Simplified Procedures and EU AEO program, and (v) Gap analysis and compliance assessment with the standards and transitional standards of the GA of the RKC. In addition, the CSRM was updated briefly on the on-going status of the comprehensive review of the RKC and WCO’s Mercator program to support Members successful implementation of the WTO TFA.

The Workshop provided a deeper understanding and perspective in CSRM’s current status, on-going modernization initiatives and future action plans. The preliminary findings of the gap analysis presented approximately 15% deficiency in CSRMs compliance towards the GA of the RKC. Given CSRM’s level of compliance, it was recommended to explore the possibility to accede to the RKC.