At the invitation of the Guatemala Customs, two World Customs Organization (WCO) experts facilitated a national Time Release Study (TRS) Workshop from 23 to 27 September 2019 in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Apart from Customs, several representatives from the trade stakeholder community involved in international movement of cargo participated in the event, including representatives of the air and sea ports, national Broker’s Association and the Customs Administration.

The objective of the Workshop was to produce a draft of the national TRS report of Guatemala covering the average release time for a number of selected border crossing points, including for the port of Santo Tomas de Castilla. 

Five sub-groups were created to draft the report with different tasks. This provided an excellent opportunity for the participants to analyze the average release time for each Customs station or border crossing point pre-selected for the study. The analysis also enabled participants to identify bottlenecks in the clearance process of cargo. The preliminary report was drafted, and validated by all the participants from Guatemala, covering private and public trade stakeholders.

It is important to highlight that Guatemala Customs Administration has officially started a TRS this year, with strong political support, as well as with important involvement of other trade stakeholders. The Administration, together with a selected number of representatives of other trade stakeholders, are currently preparing solid grounds to finalize the national TRS report which will be presented in a national forum within the next year, indicating not only the bottlenecks, but also the recommendations to address such bottlenecks.

At the conclusion of the Workshop, the facilitators reaffirmed continuous WCO support to Guatemala to ensure that the national TRS report meets the highest standards expected for any TRS cycle, as envisaged by the TRS Guide – Version 3.0.