International Chamber of Commerce
Introduction
These Guidelines, an initial business contribution to
the implementation of the ICC Cooperation Agreement (1996) with
the World Customs organization (WCO), present a comprehensive set
of practices which the ICC considers are of particular value and
importance for those engaged in international trade and transport
and should characterise all modern customs administrations.
The Guidelines draw on a range of documents established by the
WCO, including the Kyoto Convention and the Columbus Declaration.
Many of their recommended practices — for example, the use
of risk-assessment techniques with pre-entry and post-audit
procedures — are as favourable to more effective customs
control as to improved trade facilitation. The Guidelines make
specific reference to the value of systematic customs/trade
cooperation through Memorandum of Under-standing programmes.
The Guidelines will have many uses. They set out, in a convenient
and well-defined form, a summary list of key procedures which can
be readily expanded into a comprehensive Code of Best Customs
Practices, which would be of considerable value to customs and
trade in many emerging and transition economies. They should
prove most useful as a means of rapid analysis of customs quality
by such lending agencies as the World Bank or the IMF, for which
international trade performance, greatly influenced by customs
efficiency, is a key factor in financing and loan assessments.
They can serve as the basis for a regular review and
classification of customs services and as a reliable index of
their progress. They look ahead to certain potential extensions
of current practice, and so provide signposts to customs
innovations.
They will, of course, be adapted over a period to reflect new
trading, transport and administrative techniques, particularly in
respect of information and communication technologies. The ICC
expects to gain much from experience of their use, in their
present form, in European transition economies and in the focal
customs activities now under way in APEC and NAFTA.
They are a powerful tool to help bring practical freedom for the
individual international transaction into line with the policy
objective of global trade liberalisation.
Certain procedures may not be feasible at the moment, in some
countries, by reason of legal constraints. It is no part of the
ICC intention to ask customs to question national legislation,
but all the points set out in the Guidelines have satisfactory
practical application by some leading customs administrations and
the ICC advances such proposals in the expectation that any
remaining legal obstacles, elsewhere, will be progressively
removed.
The Guidelines in no way imply any reduction in the
responsibilities of traders to comply fully with customs laws and
regulations. Indeed, they are intended to encourage cooperation
between customs and commerce so that both can fulfil their
obligations without conflict.
A modern, efficient and effective customs administration:
A. Strategic Plan
1. associates its business community with the
development of a strategic plan, looking forward three to five
years, which describes its overall strategy and key priorities,
supported by an annual management plan containing more detailed
targets, objectives and performance measures;
2. publishes an annual review, up-dating strategy and reporting
progress;
B. Workforce and Structure
3. employs a highly professional workforce, which is
recruited competitively, well trained, adequately paid and
screened for enforcement risks, with written, standardised job
descriptions and objectives, supporting transparent career
development and promotion policies;
4. establishes an internal security unit, or is subject to an
equivalent external body, to deal with issues of employee
integrity. These arrangements should be known to the trade
community, which should be given information enabling them to
contact the appropriate security agency as and when necessary;
5. ensures that all employees having contact with the public
carry proper identification, which should be shown on request;
6. employs, trains and identifies, as appropriate, tariff
classification, valuation and rules of origin experts, to assist
the trade community in these areas;
7. trains officers to investigate complex frauds, and recommend
appropriate action;
C. Cargo Processing (General)
8. applies the WCO Kyoto Convention and actively
supports current WCO work on its review and revision;
D. Cargo Processing (Inwards)
9. relates physical control procedures to documentary
control procedures, in such a way that essential control data are
processed in advance of the arrival of the goods, while other,
administrative data are handled by post-clearance controls;
10. gives the declarant the option to secure immediate or rapid
release by filing entry data in advance of the arrival of the
goods;
11. gives the declarant the option to enter data, either manually
or electronically, and comply with essential control
requirements, at a place different from the location of the
goods;
12. establishes control and release systems that enable the
importer or agent to obtain the goods prior to the completion of
administrative requirements and payment of duties, taxes and
fees;
13. applies the WCO Express Guidelines for consignments for which
immediate or expedited release or clearance is requested,
regardless of weight, value, size, type of operator or carrier,
or mode of transport;
14. applies a de-minimis regime whereby certain goods,
including documents, private gift packages and trade samples, not
exceeding a certain value or weight, are exempted from import
duties and taxes and from formal declaration procedures;
15. reviews de-minimis levels regularly to take account of
such factors as inflation;
16. gives the importer the option to file entries himself or to
use an authorized agent;
17. releases goods at carrier’s point of arrival, without
requiring their interim transfer to a government-operated or
-designated warehouse;
18. uses selectivity, based on automated compliance measurement
and risk-assessment and profiling systems, to target suspect
consignments and so minimise the incidence of physical
examinations;
19. operates a corporate surety bonding system, or other
appropriate means, such as a duty- and tax-deferral system, to
protect the revenue and ensure compliance with customs laws
without unnecessarily delaying the release of goods;
20. fixes, in the absence of any evidence of fraud, a reasonable
limit on the time during which it can demand additional duties
and/or the re-delivery of the goods;
21. develops the use of non-intrusive examination techniques,
such as X-ray;
22. develops and applies performance standards to check that its
processing and release of goods are timely and meet reasonable
business needs;
23. allows authorized importers to file single entries covering
all their importations in a given period, e.g., monthly;
24. replaces transaction-by-transaction treatment by
account-based, post-entry procedures for importers with proven
compliance histories and consistent import patterns (e.g., types
of goods and origins);
25. has government authority to perform certain control
functions, at the time of import, for other official agencies and
links these agencies to customs automated systems and databases
for targeting and risk-assessment purposes;
26. adapts its working hours to ascertained commercial needs and
operational requirements, and operates any necessary overtime or
other exceptional service systems on transparent cost bases
negotiated with business clients;
E. Cargo Processing (Outwards)
27. ensures that the statistical requirements for
recording purposes are not applied in ways, or at times or
places, that could significantly affect the efficiency of the
export operation;
28. accepts, as far as possible, a commercial document, e.g.,
invoice, containing the necessary particulars, as the export
declaration, in place of an official form;
F. Cargo Processing (Transit)
29. applies appropriate international transit
conventions, for example, those noted in Annex E.1 of the
Kyoto Convention;
30. cooperates closely with other neighbouring customs
administrations to assist effective control and facilitation of
common transit traffic;
31. operates computerised systems providing early, reliable
notice of discharge of declarants’, carriers’ and
guarantors’ transit obligations and effective means of
identifying and preventing fraud;
32. accepts that guarantees or deposits for the transit operation
remove any need for supplementary undertakings or payments at
point of entry;
G. Transparency of Regulation and Administration
33. publishes its strategic plan and all customs
regulations and makes them available to the public through the
most modern and practical media, while ensuring that existing and
new regulations and legislation are simple in form, content and
presentation;
34. consults the trade community, systematically, to obtain views
on proposed new regulations and procedures, or amendments to
existing requirements, and gives them timely notice of any
eventual changes;
35. adopts a Memoranda of Understanding programme, based upon
that sponsored by the WCO, by which improved cooperation with the
trade community is established in the areas of information
exchange, security and training, with a view to more effective
interdiction of customs fraud, in particular drug trafficking,
infringements of intellectual property rights and threats to
endangered species;
36. provides the means for the trade community to question or
appeal decisions, by local officials, to a higher level, within
customs, and, eventually, to a court of law, settling minor
violations, normally, at the local level;
37. establishes an ombudsman, specialised in customs matters, as
a medium for approaching the administration and a general
information office or section to deal with queries from the
trading community;
H. Automation
38. operates a nationwide automated system to provide
electronic filing facilities for the trade community in respect
of declaration data to be submitted at both import and export and
for banks and corporate sureties in respect of duty and tax
guarantees and surety bonds;
39. is able to transmit and receive data, nationally and
internationally, using appropriate international EDI standards;
40. provides automated systems for the payment of duties, taxes
and other fees by electronic fund transfer;
41. makes tariff and related information/data available to the
trading community from an automated system;
42. establishes and operates an automated enforcement information
system, using risk assessment and other modern control
techniques;
43. requires, as a matter of routine, in automated systems, only
those data items which can be clearly linked to significant gains
in customs operational efficiency;
I. Tariff Classification and Valuation
44. applies the WCO Harmonised System Convention;
45. applies the WTO Valuation Agreement;
46. issues binding pre-entry classification and valuation
rulings, on request, which will be honoured by officers,
throughout the customs territory;
47. identifies and makes available customs experts to advise the
trade community on tariff classification and valuation matters;
48. provides a sound, scientific basis for classification
decisions through the use of laboratory analysis, equipment and
technology;
49. publishes tariff classification and valuation rulings, either
in printed form or on electronic media, and makes them available
to traders and other customs administrations;
J. Origin
50. publishes current origin rules and rulings;
51. applies, in due course, the WTO Rules of Origin;
K. Disputes and Sanctions
52. accepts and applies the penalty regimes in Annex H.2
of the Kyoto Convention;
53. favours the resolution of disputes with traders through
conciliation and financial adjustment rather than recourse to
courts;
L. International
54. is a WCO member and participates in WCO and regional
customs activities;
55. shares information with, and provides technical assistance
to, other customs administrations for enforcement and
facilitation purposes;
56. consults with major traders/carriers to develop
customs/customs/business electronic information systems that
would, initially, link and, eventually, replace traditionally
separate export and import formalities;
M. Passenger Processing
57. relies on passenger observation techniques and
behaviour profiles rather than routine questioning of all
passengers;
58. establishes benchmark standards for passenger processing
times and checks performances with corresponding benchmarks in
other customs administrations;
59. uses automation techniques, including EDI, to improve the
efficiency and security of passenger processing, including, where
appropriate, the capture of Advance Passenger Information (API)
from machine-readable travel documents, leading to expedited
passenger clearance;
60. uses a passenger processing system that is integrated with
immigration and other control authorities, in order to avoid
procedural duplication.