The Belgian Customs and Excise Administration can go ahead to post 5 customs representatives in important markets, outside the EU.   Noël Colpin, the Belgian Administrator General, convinced the Belgian government to have its own customs representatives in Moskow, Pretoria, Washington, New-Delhi and Beijing.  Aim is to simplify the economical relations with these countries by the presence of Belgian customs representatives.  The names of the newly appointed will be made official in June.

This decision is complimentary to the project for ’secure trade lanes’.  A ’secure trade lane’ is a logistics information platform, which gives access to transaction data.  Customs authorities are studying how to work together for the exchange of data and the monitoring of movement of goods.  Belgian Customs are involved in the study of the trade lane with India.  Other countries next to India with whom the EU wants to set up trade lanes are China, South-Africa and South-Corea. 

Another initiative in the same context is Authorized Economic Operator (AEO).  AEO certified companies will eventually be authorised to use these trade lanes.  By doing so, they will benefit from a preferential treatment offered by customs authorities for consignments proven safe.  The level of certification will however determine how clients will be subject to customs checks.   

It is clear that customs will evolve from its current role as an administrator into a new role as facilitator of business.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 13:03 and is filed under Customs, Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.