The Chair of the Committee, Buddhi Prasad Upadhyaya of Nepal, shared with members the current notification status regarding customs valuation legislation as contained in document G/VAL/W/232/Rev.15. Since the last Committee meeting in October 2021, Bolivia and Georgia have submitted new notifications about customs legislation. Also, more than a dozen notifications containing questions or responses regarding customs legislation were submitted by members.

Under Article 22 of the Customs Valuation Agreement and the Decision on “Notification and circulation of national legislation in accordance with Article 22 of the Agreement”, members must submit the complete texts of their national legislation on customs valuation in one of the three official WTO languages. They should also inform the Committee of any changes in their laws and regulations relevant to this Agreement and in the administration of such laws and regulations.

The Chair noted that to date 111 members have notified their national legislation on customs valuation and 77 members have provided responses to a checklist of issues. He also pointed out that the customs legislation of more than a third of the WTO membership is now currently under review in the Committee.

Experience sharing

Members welcomed the Chair's proposal to organize an experience-sharing session in the margins of one of the upcoming Committee meetings to exchange experiences regarding the implementation of the Customs Valuation Agreement.

The Chair referred to the usefulness of these sessions in the work of other committees, such as the Committee on Trade Facilitation and the Committee on Market Access as they allowed members to exchange experiences in a manner that promotes transparency and the sharing of best practices.

Following informal contacts with a few members and hearing a largely positive reaction, he proposed that a small group consultation of interested members could be held to discuss how such a session could be developed in connection with a future formal meeting.

e-Agenda

The WTO Secretariat made a presentation on how the e-Agenda platform has been implemented in the Committee on Market Access (CMA). While acknowledging that some aspects of the CMA's activities differ from that of the Committee on Customs Valuation, the Chair encouraged members to consider whether certain aspects of the platform relating to transparency and accessibility of documents could be useful in their work.

Preshipment inspection

Under the standing agenda item of preshipment inspection (PSI), the Chair drew members' attention to the compilation of notifications under Article 5 of the Agreement on Preshipment Inspection. The current status of all PSI notifications is contained in G/PSI/N/1/Rev.5 together with Addendum 1.

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Committee on Customs Valuation is scheduled for 24 October 2022.

Read more on customs valuation here.