IMO’s Julian Abril and Alper Keceli have attended a bilateral meeting with the World Customs Organisation (WCO), in Brussels (24 February). During the meeting both Organizations shared their experiences on implementation of national single window systems and were updated on IMO’s maritime single window prototype project. The meeting also discussed the regular updating of the "IMO Compendium of facilitation and electronic business", following agreement in IMO’s Facilitation Committee (FAL 39) that the technical maintenance of the compendium would be carried out by WCO and the revised compendium would subsequently be distributed as a joint IMO-WCO publication.
The compendium aims to encourage the use of modern information and communication technology and, in particular, electronic exchange of information, including Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), to transmit information related to maritime transport. The procedures for the technical maintenance of the IMO Compendium were discussed during the meeting and will be taken forward by the next WCO Data Model Project Team (DMPT) meeting at WCO headquarters in Brussels (9 to 13 March), in which the IMO Secretariat will participate.