World Customs Organization organizes workshop on Time Release Study

By Estudio Chaloupka

From October 5 to 8, 2020, the World Customs Organizations (WCO) organized a virtual workshop for nearly 30 officials from  Argentina's Customs Administration. The event was led by two WCO Time Release Study (TRS) experts with the aim of supporting Argentina's Customs in carrying out its first TRS focusing on the Customs intervention in the national clearance process.

A TRS is a systematic and standard method to measure the average time taken to release cargoes and for each step or intervention in a border procedure. A TRS thereby measures relevant aspects of the effectiveness of operational procedures that are carried out by Customs and other regulatory actors in the standard processing of imports, exports and in transit movements. It seeks to measure these elements of trade flows with accuracy so that related decisions aimed at improving such performance can be properly conceived and implemented.

The workshop was very positive, creating opportunity for discussions and interaction. According to a WCO press release, during the event, the WCO experts provided detailed guidance on the TRS methodology, the reason for countries to draft a business process, the importance of creating a national TRS action plan useful to foster the implementation of national TRS and the key aspects and features related to the WCO TRS software required to carry out TRS.

With a clear understanding about the TRS methodology, the participants were able to draft a national TRS action plan which Argentina may wish to use when carrying out the TRS.