The 54th Meeting of the Harmonized System Working Group (GTSH) of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) Customs was held from 6 to 17 May, 2019, in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Meeting in the premises of the 10th Tax Region of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Secretariat, representatives of Brazil, Portugal and Timor Leste worked intensively over the 10 days on the harmonization of the single version of the Harmonized System Nomenclature in Portuguese.  They were joined by a representative of the WCO Tariff and Trade Affairs Directorate for the second week of the meeting, during which they worked on the general review of the Portuguese version of the HS Explanatory Notes (ENs).  This work provides a single version of the ENs for use by all Portuguese-language country-Members that compose the CPLP, namely, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor Leste.

This working group is the oldest of the CPLP Customs working groups and, given that the maintenance of a single Portuguese version of the HS and its additional instruments is of fundamental importance for the work of the Customs administrations, is noted as the most important. The ongoing work of this WG is outlined in the CPLP Strategic Plan, developed in partnership with the WCO, and is included in the project of Tariff Nomenclature (HS) in Portuguese and Harmonized System Procedures.

In closing the meeting, the head of Nomenclature and Tariff Classification of Brazil, Ms. Claudia Navarro, expressed her recognition of the results presented by the Working Group. The next meeting will take place in May 2020, when the work on the HS 2022 will start. In the interval between meetings, representatives of the CPLP administrations will hold various virtual meetings to keep the translation of the HS and EN amendments up-to-date.