Strengthening Bilateral Cooperation between the IPPC and the WCO

To strengthen bilateral cooperation between the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) in order to promote safe and efficient trade in plants and plant products, Mr Jingyuan Xia, the IPPC Secretary, led a delegation (composed of Mr Craig Fedchock, Mr Orlando Sosa, Mr Marko Benovic and Mr Tommaso Teti from the IPPC Secretariat) to pay an official visit to the WCO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on 2 June 2017. The IPPC delegate held a meeting Mr Ernani Checcucci (Director of Capacity Building Directorate), Mr Alan Harrison (Executive Officer in charge of Member Relations), and Mr David Kane (Technical Attaché). The main objective of the meeting was to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding for Bilateral Cooperation between the IPPC and the WCO.

Through the meeting, four key areas were agreed for cooperation: 1) e-commerce and ePhyto; 2) single window and big data; 3) Sea Containers and the relevant packaging issues; and 4) communication and advocacy. Several working mechanisms were also discussed, including selection of one or two countries to implement different types of joint programmes so as to demonstrate how the cooperation works, which could be done in the regions of the Chinese initiative One Belt and One Road and those in Africa.

Both sides agreed that the current MoU should be changed to the Cooperation Agreement, and move forward with the Cooperation Agreement following a final review and approval process. Both sides hope that the Cooperation Agreement can be wrapped up for signature sometime in the second semester of 2017.