IAPH and World Customs Organisation (WCO) have jointly relaunched their guidelines, which have been written for ports and their national customs authorities to use together in order to improve trade fluidity and security. The guidelines follow inputs made by the World Shipping Council (WSC), which emphasise the importance of timely, accurate ship-shore data exchange, and the adoption of Single Window Environments to simplify and harmonise data submission to enhance security and compliance. The guidelines, which include numerous case studies of customs-port cooperation in developing and developed countries, address the WSC’s call for trusted public–private partnerships to tackle illegal trafficking as well as clear international practices to address abandoned and uncleared containers. The guidelines are available in English, French and Latin American Spanish.
