WCO E-Commerce Specifications Progressing; Harmonized System Improvements to Be Considered
The World Customs Organization Permanent Technical Committee has approved a draft of e-commerce technical specifications, and the package will next face review with the Policy Commission in June and the WCO Council soon after, said Ana Hinojosa, WCO director-Compliance and Facilitation. Hinojosa spoke via video at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America's annual conference on April 17. There are also some discussions on e-commerce planned with the World Trade Organization, she said. "They have invited us to participate in some of their workshops and we're very interested in us to engage in their process as well," she said. "We're hopeful that those conversations will be fruitful and something will come out of that."
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CBP believes that "work needs to continue" on the e-commerce standards, said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade. "We believe that a lot of the work by countries that rely on collection of a value added tax has drive a lot of the requirements in the WCO's technical appendices and documents," said Smith. We think that we ought to take a little bit more time" to make sure the implementation documents "do allow for and support safety and security in the e-commerce environment."
The planned review of the Harmonized System at an event next month hosted by the WCO Tariff and Trade Affairs Directorate is hoped to included opinions from both customs regimes and filers, Hinojosa said. "They are looking at how complicated it is, whether there's a way to update and revise it in a way that makes it more user-friendly and actually drives more uniform implementation of it," she said. CBP will also be at the meeting, said Smith.