The Seventh Meeting of the Working Group on the Comprehensive Review of the Revised Kyoto Convention (WGRKC) was held from 9 to -13 December 2019 at the WCO Headquarters in Brussels, with the attendance of 42 delegates from 19 Member Customs administrations and 7 external stakeholders.
Ms. Ana B. Hinojosa, Director of the Compliance and Facilitation Directorate of WCO, delivered opening remarks. She presented the discussions on the RKC at the 21st RKC/MC Meeting (in November 2019) and the 82nd Session of Policy Commission (in December 2019) as well as other intersessional developments since the 6th WGRKC Meeting. She encouraged delegates to discuss the process flow, as an option, to find out the way forward for the WGRKC.
As tasked by the 21st Meeting of the RKC Management Committee (RKC/MC), the WGRKC extensively discussed items relating to the process flow, such as the “Four-step Framework” for the review, including: Step 1 – “submission of proposals” and “development of recommendations”; Step 2 – “assessment of developed recommendations against the RKC and existing WCO tools”; Step 3 – “consideration of developed recommendations against criteria”; and Step 4 – “development of amendment proposals”. The meeting also agreed on the working methodologies, the new work plan, criteria for prioritizing the proposals, and prioritization of concepts/proposals to test the use of developed criteria.
The Meeting concluded that one more meeting of the WGRKC to be held from 30 March to 3 April 2020, would be necessary to finalize Step 1. The majority of the WGRKC agreed that in principle Steps 2, 3 and 4 should be conducted by the RKC/MC, taking note of the concerns raised by some Members on required human and financial resources for the RKC/MC to conduct this review work.
In the margins of the WGRKC, informal meetings on Rules of Origin (ROO) were held to further develop the joint proposal on Specific Annex K (Rules of Origin), which would be discussed in a back-to-back meeting with the 38th Session of the Technical Committee on Rules of Origin (3-4 February 2020).
“The proceedings of the WGRKC will depend on discussions and decisions at the next RKC/MC Meeting to be held on 10-12 February 2020,” the Chairperson concluded at the closing of the Meeting.
14 January 2020