. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/VAL/W/71
27 June 2000
(00-2612)
Committee on Customs Valuation Original:  English
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
CUSTOMS VALUATION MODEL WORK PROGRAMME
Communication from the European Communities
The following communication reflecting the oral statement made by the representative of the
European Communities under agenda item B of the Committee meeting of 14 June 2000 on
"Technical Assistance", has been received from the Permanent Mission of the European Communitieswith the request that it be circulated to Members.
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The European Communities would like to take this opportunity to put more focus on the very
valuable work this Committee has done on tech nical assistance in implementing the Customs
Valuation Agreement. This explains my presence here, as I am responsible for the technical assistance
activities delivered by WTO.
One thing which clearly came out of the process undertaken in WTO after the Seattle failure
is the need to improve technical assistance. This is reflected not only in the statements made in the
General Council made on 8 May, but also in various contributions which the Quad, individualdelegations including the EC (WT/COMTD/W/69) have put forward. In short, we have to do more
and better on technical assistance in WTO.
This Committee has played an eminent role in sketching out how we can improve on WTO
technical assistance. Extremely useful work has been done in this Committee to develop a bottom-up
approach on technical assistance (documents as the inventory G/VAL/W/25 etc.). By this I mean that
we have looked at the individual needs of countr ies which had a problem to meet a certain deadline.
We have identified the necessary steps which would enable them to implement the various provisions
of the Customs Valuation Agreement. We have looked for potential donors which can carry out
precisely defined measures. We have tried to coordinate the various actors which deliver technical
assistance on the ground. I think it is fair to say that no other WTO Committee has taken such an
innovative approach in getting things done. I think it is also fair to say that the work done here has
largely gone unnoticed, and may not have got the credit it deserves.
From the work done so far in this Committee, but also from the activities which have taken
place elsewhere (APEC, bilateral programmes of individual WTO Members,  UNCTAD, World Bank,
WCO) we think it is useful to deduct a number of core principles, and to possibly extend the work
done so far in particular the follow-up once we have agreed on a specific future work:G/VAL/W/71
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- You all know these core principles. They are full participation by the recipients for demand
driven assistance (needs assessment, regard ing for example national legislation and its
conformity to the agreement, customs procedure) ;
- Establishment of priorities and identification of specific problem areas (where do we need
training materials, where do we have to send for experts, where do we have to providecourses/seminars etc.) ;
- The need to improve coherence between the relevant donors .
(- N.B. There might be other principles to be identified)
We intend to add to these principles the need for continuation of the work in the post-
implementation period. At some stage, we have to see whether the measures taken have had the
desired effect or whether and what additional measures are necessary.
Those of you who have experience with the Integrated Framework may recognise the
principles just eluded to as they form the core of the Integrated Framework. While in that context
applying these principles had not been without di fficulty, the Community believes that using them to
implement a single agreement should be easier. We would also like to recall that in our various
communications on technical assistance and capacity building in WTO, we have underlined our
intention to apply the principles of the Integrated Framework to other areas in WTO activities (N.B.without enlarging the Integrated Framework as such, which we wish to see limited to least developed
countries also in the future). It is also worth noting that APEC has adopted a similar approach to
technical assistance last week in Darwin.
We believe that we should agree in this Committee that we can reinforce the work done by
defining better the principles we just mentioned, and trying to refocus the work by having a clear
framework of parameters within which we work.
The Community believes that refocusing the work of the Committee, and in particular trying
to include the post-implementation dimension into its work can respond to the good intentions we all
have in making technical assistance more effective. In the longer term, we have the hope that we can
draw lessons from the work undertaken here in order to in general improve WTO technical assistance.
Procedurally, we would ask the Chairman of this Committee, if delegations so agree, to start
informal consultations in order to see what elements could be identified in order to undertake
systematic future meaningful work in this Comm ittee. We also believe that the WTO Secretariat at
some stage can help us, for example in establishing a clear picture of who is doing what in the field of
customs valuation at this moment. Involving the WTO Secretariat also means fully implicating the
WTO division responsible for technical cooperation along the WTO services servicing this
Committee.
Returning to my starting point: We would like to discuss with you a renewed approach to
technical assistance in WTO, using the context of customs valuation. Given the importance of
technical assistance for WTO in general, we have the intention to bring our renewed efforts in this
Committee, also to the attention of the other relevant WTO bodies, for example the Committee on
Trade & Development which is responsible for technical assistance delivered in WTO in general.
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