The DMPT held its 59th Meeting in virtual mode from 25 to 29 January 2021. The Meeting included Focus Groups (FG) breakout meetings of the Implementation Support Focus Group (ISFG) and Data Modelling Focus Group (DMFG) that met in parallel on 27 and 28 January 2021. There were 141 participants registered for the Meeting from Members, representative of International Organizations, and the private sector.

The Meeting re-elected Ms Louritha Green of United States (US) as the Chair of the DMPT. Mr Pranab Kumar Das, Director of Compliance and Facilitation, welcome all of the delegates. In his opening remarks, Mr Das congratulated the DMPT for completing the new version of the WCO DM (i.e., version 3.10.0 ¹ ) timely, enabling the Secretariat to publish the new release on time. Mr Das highlighted, in-line with the Council decision, the need for prioritizing DMPT’s activities based on their relevance with the response to and recovery from COVID-19.

The DMPT received and processed 31 Data Maintenance Requests (DMR) from the European Union, the Netherlands, Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) and the United Nation Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Due to the high number DMRs, the plenary sessions, the sessions where the DMRs were discussed, were extended from two to three days. The DMPT accepted 27 DMRs, and 4 were withdrawn.
The EU’s DMR was submitted to ensure the alignment of the WCO DM with the recent changes in EU Customs data requirements (including formats and codes) based on the changes in EU Customs legislation. The Netherlands’s DMRs focused on adding the WCO DM’s capabilities to conduct the “Waste Receipt” process² in accordance with the EU Directive on port reception facilities for the delivery of waste from ships. The CBSA’s DMRs were submitted to align its Commercial Accounting Declaration (CAD), a part of CBSA’s Assessment and Revenue Management project, by enabling the WCO DM to accommodate CAD’s business functionalities. Meanwhile, the UNECE’s DMR aimed at enabling the WCO DM to accommodate a business requirement of the TIR convention to indicate if goods could be transported in a sealable equipment.

In connection to its ongoing work in preparing version 4 of the WCO DM, the DMPT was briefed by the product manager of the WCO DM version 4.0.0, Mr William Slusher of the US, on the progress of the preparation of version 4 and its mission, namely, to significantly increase implementation of the WCO Data Model by Members by improving the quality of the product and making it easier to obtain, understand, and implement. The DMPT agreed to establish a structured approach to determine the features of the WCO DM v.4. Under this topic, the DMPT also expressed its support to continue exploring support for Open API 3.0 as a new prominent data exchange method and simplifying the Base Information Package (BIP).

In the Focus Group breakouts, the ISFG developed a strategy to enhance the level adoption of the WCO DM. The ISFG examined some of the challenges facing Members when adopting the WCO DM and raised the need to address the senior managers of Customs administrations and private sector stakeholders as part of WCO DM related capacity-building strategy. The DMFG continued reviewing the WCO-UPU Join Message Standard and examined the dataset of the WCO-UPU Joint Message Standards. The DMPT agreed to invite relevant domain experts to complete the alignment of the dataset with the WCO DM. In addition, the DMFG also examined the potential reuse of commercial data used in railway processes (i.e., Railway Consignment Note) to fulfil Customs railway transit requirements.

The Meeting was closed by Mr Brendan O’Hearn, Deputy Director of Procedures and Facilitation. In his remarks, Mr O’Hearn cited

the Council decision to phase out the Information Management Sub Committee (IMSC), the WCO Working Body to which the DMPT reports, noting that the DMPT Terms of Reference (ToR) would have to be adapted reflect the new arrangement. To this end, he invited DMPT to consider discussing such governance issues in its next Meeting.