ABU DHABI, (Pakistan Point News - 26th Oct, 2020) GCC Customs Union Authority convened its 24th meeting chaired by UAE, the president of the current session through video conferencing.
Ahmad Abdulla Bin Lahej Alfalasi, General Manager, FCA chaired the meeting with the participation of Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohamed Al Khalifa, Chairman, Bahrain Customs; Suliman Altwejri, Vice Governor of Security and International Cooperation in KSA Customs, Khalifa Bin Saeed Alabri, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic and Development Affairs, GCC General Secretary; Brigadier General Khalifa Bin Ali Alseyabi, Director-General, Oman Customs; Counsellor Jamal Bin Hadel Aljalawi, Director-General, Kuwait Customs General Authority, and Ahmed Bin Abdualla Aljammal, Chairman, Qatar Customs General Authority in addition to the UAE delegate encompassing Alyia Almarmoom, Managing Director of Customs Affairs Sector in the Authority in addition to several officials and departments heads in the state and gulf customs.
Alfalasi initiated the meeting expressing deep condolence to the Kuwait delegate on the demise of the prince of humanity HH Sheikh Sabah Jaber Al Ahmed, and welcomed the members of participating delegates while applauding the high-level cooperation between state members of the GCC Customs Union Authority and their endless keenness to provide all forms of support to bring success to the trajectory of cooperation and gulf customs union.
During the meeting, participating delegates addressed many issues and matters of customs agenda in the Gulf states the most prominent of which is the requisite amendments to the unified customs law, unified customs duties, customs unified guidelines, the unified guideline of foreign products clearance, mutual recognition of the Authorised Economic Operator, AEO, common Gulf market, the measures on exempting industry inputs, implementing the resolutions and arrangements on combating international trade malpractices, in addition to exploring some customs studies and state members’ proposals on facilitating technology advancement to support and facilitate supply chain and customs-risks management.
Ahmad Abdulla Bin Lahej, meeting chairman, noted that during the meeting, delegate members discussed the proposed amendments to selected articles under the unified customs law especially those related to updating and developing customs declaration, customs duties on government needs in the security sector, given international trade development and emergent updates.
Moreover, UAE showcased its efforts to implement the method of direct transfer of customs duties among GCC countries.
He highlighted that UAE offered a working paper addressing mutual recognition agreements mechanism under the gulf AEO programme given UAE’s pioneering of this field.
During the meeting, participants concurred upon keeping valid the AEO programme’s mutual recognition agreements among state countries, allowing state members to carry on the in-progress mutual recognition agreements or execute bilateral agreements following the effectiveness of Gulf AEO programme.
As to unanimous mutual recognition, Gulf Authority ascertained, during the meeting, permitting unanimous and joint AEO’s mutual recognition agreement under the free trade agreements provided that such agreements provide for the mandatory execution of Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements mutually among GCC countries.
