MONGOLIAN DELEGATES ATTEND 132ND ANNUAL SESSION OF THE WCO

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Mongolia joined the World Customs Organization (WCO), which has 182 member countries, as its 111th member in 1991. Since then, the country has been operating in compliance with its policies and directions. Customs authorities of the member countries hold an annual meeting in June to review their activities and outline future directions. On June 28-30, Mongolian delegates led by Director-General of the Mongolian Customs General Administration B.Asralt attended the 132nd annual session of the WCO’s Customs cooperation council. Over 700 delegates including customs authorities from 182 countries and representatives of international organizations addressed a wide spectrum of key issues. The main feature of the session was that eight in total elections of Secretary-General of the WCO, Audit Committee, Policy Commission and the Chair of the next session were held. Furthermore, participants exchanged views on customs development, policy document for defining further activities, improving the quality of information, cooperation outcomes of e-commerce, cyber security and other areas, further cooperation, aviation safety and trade facilitation. In order to enhance capacity of the customs administration, Mongolian delegates met with executives in charge of Secretary-General affairs and held discussions on ensuring trade security, trade facilitation activities, ways to assess customs performance, qualitative data analysis methods, WCO’s initiative for combating illegal trade flows and aviation security. They also met with the customs authorities of China, Hungary, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany and the Republic of Korea, and shared views on cooperation and mutual assistance. Apart from electing the Secretary-General of the WCO, this year's session intended to exchange opinions on implementation of the policy on deepening Customs-Business and Customs-Government cooperation. M.Anudari