The World Customs Organization says its multi-stakeholder Working Group on E-Commerce (WGEC) is now concentrating on four major work packages in relation to e-commerce and to plans to update WCO efforts and thrusts to keep up with new issues and developments in online cross-border trade.
The WGEC is currently focused on four identified work packages—trade facilitation and simplification of procedures, safety and security, revenue collection, and measurement and analysis—with a view to developing recommendations, guidelines, and framework on cross-border e-commerce as well as enhancing and updating related WCO instruments and tools.
The organization said the work packages are part of the WGEC’s continued work on cross-border e-commerce that seeks to address the challenges and needs of various stakeholders in the e-commerce chain when it comes to cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions and shipments.
WCO also disclosed that, relatedly, it has launched an e-commerce web-corner on its website that will act as a single reference point for e-commerce information, including the progress of the WGEC’s initiatives.
WCO said its other activities as part of the e-commerce program include the recent publication of the “Study Report on E-Commerce,” which analyzes customs administrations’ practices and initiatives in processing cross-border low-value e-commerce to address some of the challenges stemming from the growing low-value and small shipments.
Moreover, the WCO has begun publishing a series of articles on different facets of e-commerce. The first in this series is an article written by the WCO director of compliance and facilitation that brings out some of the underlying issues both from a customs perspective as well as a consumer perspective.
And at the upcoming sessions of the WCO Permanent Technical Committee to be held from April 3 to April 7, 2017, a special session on e-commerce will further explore this topic through four thematic workshops on April 5, 2017.
Photo: Servizi Multimediali
