The World Customs Organization (WCO) successfully conducted a 3-day national workshop on the application and implementation of Inward and Outward Processing, and Free Zones in the context of the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) from 8-10 May 2023 in Luanda, Angola. The workshop was organized with the financial support of the WCO Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF) Japan.

The workshop brought together over 35 Customs Officers drawn from different areas of Customs with the objective of raising their awareness and deepening their understanding at the strategic and operational level about the application and implementation of Inward and Outward Processing and Free Zones in the context of the RKC.

Delivering the opening remarks on behalf of the Director of the Customs Directorate was the Head of the Rules and Procedures Department, Yola Christiano, who began by welcoming participants and experts to the workshop. The Head also remarked that, given the anticipated prospects, the workshop would be a lively debate, and urged participants to actively participate in the discussions.

Deolinda Reis Simões, the Head of the Delegation and WCO RKC Expert, began by stating that Angola became a Contracting Party to the RKC on February 23, 2017, and was the fourth country among the nine countries that make up the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries. Further, the Head of Delegation added that this important Convention currently has 133 Contracting Parties  (as of June 25, 2022) out of 185 Members that make up the WCO. In conclusion, the Head of Delegation informed participants that the complete Portuguese version of the RKC, whose official launch took place during the 30th meeting of the RKC Management Committee, in Brussels, which was held from 26-30 September 2022, is now available on the WCO website.

Given that Angola already acceded to the RKC, a session on assessing its level of implementation of the RKC provisions on Inward and Outward Processing and Free Zones using the RKC tool kit for quality implementation assessment was held.

The workshop also benefited from presentations made by the WCO Experts, Deolinda Reis Simões and Sang Mendy, on a number of topics, such as the Placement of goods under the Inward and Outward regimes, Authorization and termination of Inward and Outward Processing, the concept of Free Zones, etc.

As a result, it is expected that this training will lead to greater implementation and application of simplified procedures related to Inward and Outward Processing, and Free Zones in Angola and the region at large, and thereby increase regional intra-trade between Members.