EU And Japan Initial Customs Cooperation Agreement

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

06 June 2007

The European Commission on Tuesday welcomed the initialling of the customs cooperation agreement between the European Community and the Government of Japan, which took place in Berlin in the margins of the EU-Japan Summit.

The agreement aims at simplifying and harmonizing customs procedures for reliable operators, and provides the means to fight against customs fraud and to exchange information on mutual assistance matters.

This agreement is part of EU external policy to cooperate on customs matters at an international level with its largest trading partners. The European Community has already concluded agreements with the United States, Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, China and India.

Both the European Community and the Japanese authorities have agreed to take the necessary measures towards a formal signature of the agreement in the coming months.

"EU exports to Japan account for 4.1% of EU exports while Japan is the fourth largest source with a 6.2% share of the EU import market. This represents an average of around EUR15 billion trade exchanges each year" explained László Kovács, Commissioner responsible for Taxation and Customs Union.

"We therefore need to strengthen our customs cooperation with Japan in order to promote trade facilitation for reliable traders, to improve the fight against fraud and to provide protection of Intellectual Property Rights."

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