Lomé, 17 to 21 May 2016
As part of the WCO’s technical assistance for the Togo Revenue Authority (Office Togolais des Recettes – OTR) in preparation for full resumption of its Customs valuation function which had been partially outsourced to two private-sector inspection companies, the WCO organized a training seminar in Lomé from 17 to 21 May 2016 on Customs valuation control of imports. The event was attended by 30 experts and trainers from the OTR’s Customs and Indirect Taxation Office (CDDI).
In holding this training seminar, the WCO completed the second phase of its technical assistance that began with a diagnostic mission on the CDDI’s Customs valuation control system conducted by two experts from the Valuation Sub-Directorate of the Tariff and Trade Affairs Directorate from 16 to 20 November 2015.
A Technical Attaché from the WCO Secretariat’s Tariff and Trade Affairs Directorate and a trainer from the West and Central Africa (WCA) region accredited by the WCO jointly organized this training seminar. It focused on an in-depth study of the WTO’s Customs valuation rules and of good practice in relation to import valuation set out in the tools and instruments of the WCO Secretariat’s Revenue Package programme, which includes use of the valuation database as a risk management tool and the procedure for checking declared values established by Decision 6.1 of the WTO Committee on Customs Valuation concerning cases of reasonable doubt. The large numbers in attendance and their active contribution were attributable to the interactive method used by the trainers, highlighting the participants’ interest in this form of training.
This training seminar must be considered to have met its objectives in so far as the experts and trainers so trained are now equipped with the skills required properly to value imports in accordance with the WTO Agreement on Customs Valuation, and some of them may effectively pass on the knowledge they have acquired to a larger number of their colleagues.
On their completion of the training seminar, the participants were awarded WCO attendance certificates.