Delegates nibble at border costs

By Brian Fallow

WELLINGTON -- Customs officials from the 21 Apec economies meet in Rotorua later this week, looking to chip away at border costs which, the United Nations estimates, eat up 7 per cent of the value of international trade.

Though the private sector's impatience is understandable, Apec is making real progress towards the goals it has set itself in harmonising and simplifying customs procedures, says Mike Spong, the New Zealand official who chairs Apec's subcommittee on customs procedures.

The Apec programmes have timelines ending in 2002 at the latest. They involve mentoring relationships between more and less developed economies, and are largely financed by the Japanese.

They include moving to a "risk management" approach, under which officials focus their enforcement efforts on high-risk goods and travellers, while facilitating the movement of low-risk shipments.

That approach was now commonplace among developed economies but represented a major change for developing economies whose officials were accustomed to examining everything that crossed their wharves, Mr Spong said.

Also on the agenda are moves to harmonise and simplify the data required by customs authorities for the importation of goods, and the implementation of World Customs Organisation guidelines for the clearance of express goods. The Australians are proposing the addition of a programme to tackle corruption among customs officials.

Mr Spong said computerisation was one of the best tools for dealing with that as it removed opportunities for human intervention in the process.

"But it is not going to happen overnight."

Most Apec economies have already implemented the World Trade Organisation valuation agreement, providing certainty for exporters and importers on how goods are valued for customs purposes. The other economies are committed to implement the agreement by next year.