RESTRICTED  
  
G/VAL/W/306  
 
26 October 201 7 
(17-5841) Page: 1/3 
Committee on Customs Valuation    
 
 DRAFT  
REPORT (201 7) OF THE COMMITTEE O N CUSTOMS VALUATION  
TO THE COUNCIL FOR T RADE IN GOODS  
1. BACKGROUND  
1.1. The Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and 
Trade 1994 (the Agreement) entered into force on 1 January  1995. This report covers the period 
from 3 November 2016 to 25 October 2017 and addresses the work undertaken by the Committee 
on Customs Valuation (the Committee) in respect of the objectives of the Agreement.  These are:   to 
provide greater uniformity a nd certainty in the implementation of the provisions of Article VII of the 
GATT 1994; to establish a fair, uniform and neutral system for the valuation of goods for customs 
purposes that precludes the use of arbitrary o r fictitious customs values; to ensur e that the basis for 
valuation of goods for customs purposes should, to the greatest extent possible, be the transaction 
value of the goods being valued;  and to secure additional benefits for the international trade of 
developing countries.  
1.2. During th e period under consideration, the Committee held two formal meetings:  on 
15 May 2017 (G/VAL/M/ 64) under the Chair person ship of Dr Yasser Korani (Egypt) , and on 
6 November 2017 (G/VAL/M/6 5, (to be issued)) under the Chair person ship of Ms Luciana Nader  
(Uruguay) who was elected  by the Committee at the meeting of 15 May 2017 . 
1.3. Participation in the Committee is open to all WTO Members.  In addition, Governments granted 
observer status by the WTO General Council attended Committee meetings as observers. At t he 
April 1997 meeting, the Committee granted observer status to those organizations which until then  
had observer status on an ad hoc  basis, namely UNCTAD and the WCO, as well as to the ACP and 
the IADB.  The Committee took note of the fact that the World Bank and the IMF had observer status 
by virtue of the Agreements between these organizations and the WTO.  
1.4. The Committee's rules of procedure, which were approved by the Council for Trade in Goods, 
are contained in document G/L/146.  
2. IMPLEMENTATION O F THE AGREEMENT  
2.1. During the period under review, no developing country Member maintained delayed 
application of the provisions of th e Agreement in accordance with its  provisions of Article 20.1. 
At the time of circulation of this report, no Member main tained an extension of the delay period in 
accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1, Annex III  of the Agreement .   
2.2. To date, 9 9 Members have notified their national legislation on customs valuation, including 
16 Members which have submitted commun ications indicating that their legislation notified under 
the Tokyo Round Customs Valuation Agreement remained valid under the WTO Customs Valuation 
Agreement (both figures count the European Union as one ). In addition, 68 Members have 
provided responses t o the checklist of issues. There are 3 6 Members which have not yet made 
either  of these two notifications (see document s G/VAL/W/232/Rev. 7 and 
G/VAL/W/232/Rev.7/Corr.1 ).   G/VAL /W/306  
 
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  3. ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMITTEE  
3.1. The Committee carried out the following activiti es during the period under review:  
(a) Review of i nformation on implementation and administration of the CVA  
- continued its review of national legislations notified by Members . The Committee 
concluded the reviews of the national legislations of Cabo Verde, Col ombia, 
Montenegro and Nicaragua at the meeting of 15 May [and it concluded the reviews of 
the national legislation of [ ] at the meeting of 6 November].  The legislation s of the 
following Members  remain under review : [the K ingdom of Bahrain; Belize; The 
Gambia; Guinea;  Honduras; Kazakhstan; Malawi; Nepal; N igeria;  
the Russian  Federation; Rwanda; Solomon Islands; Sri Lanka; and , Ukraine] ; 
- took note of document s G/VAL/W/232/Rev.6 ; G/VAL/W/232/Rev.6/Corr.1 ; 
G/VAL/W/232/Rev.7 and G/VAL/W/232/Rev.7/Corr.1  which w ere issued by the 
Secretariat during the period under review  and which summariz ed the latest  status of 
notifications ;  
- agreed a t the 15 May meeting  to remove  from the agenda the implementation  issue 
relating to Paragraph 12 of the Doha Ministerial  Declarat ion, which related to c ustoms  
cooperation ; 
(b) Information on the application of Decisions of t he Committee on Customs Valuation  
- took note of the Secretariat's update of summary information on the latest status of 
notifications relate d to the Decision on the " Treatment of Interest Charges in the 
Customs Value of Imported Goods" and the Decision on "Valuation of Carrier Media 
Bearing Software for Data Processing Equipment"  as contained in documents 
G/VAL/W/5/Rev.27 and G/VAL/W/5/Rev.28 ; 
- suspended, at the request  of the Uruguay an delegation , until the 6 November 
meeting , its discussion on Uruguay's proposal  (G/VAL/W/241/Rev.1) to update the 
Decision on the Valuation of Carrier  Media Bearing Software  for Data Processing 
Equipment, as well as a related proposal by S witzerland (G/VAL/W/254) , of the 
Committee . At the meeting of 6 November [the Committee …] ; 
(c) Technical Assistance  
- took note of the technical assistance carried out by the WTO  and the  information 
compiled by the Technical Committee on Customs Valuation conce rning technical 
assistance activities carried out by the WCO  and its Members , as contained in 
documents  G/VAL/8/Add.34 , G/VAL/8/Add.35  and G/VAL/8/ Add.35 /Corr.1;  
(d) Trade concerns  
- took note of the statements made on the following  agenda items:  
(i) Armenia' s reference price system in connection with the valuation of goods - 
raised by the United States ;  
(iii) Pakistan's determination of customs value s of paper  – raised by Thailand ; 
- took note, a t the 15 May meeting, that Ukraine, under the scope of the refo rm of 
5 October 2016, had abolished the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine 
No. 724, which referred to the use of benchmarks for customs valuation of goods i n 
the system of risk management;   
(e) Preshipment Inspection Agreement  
- took note of the Secretariat updat e on the status of notifications on preshipment  
inspection  that were circulated in document s G/PSI/N/1/Rev. 2/Add.4 and 
G/PSI/N/1/Rev. 3; G/VAL/W/306  
 
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  - took note of updated report s by the International Federation of Inspection A gencies 
(IFIA) as  circulate d in document s G/VAL/W/63/ Rev.20  and G/VAL/W/63/Rev.211;  
- took note, at the meeting of 15 May, of statements made under the agenda item 
"Egypt's status of Notification of PSI" which had been included at the request of the 
United States and which was referr ed to in document G/VAL/W/299, circulated at the 
request of the United States;  
- took note of statements made under the agenda item of questions and responses by 
the United States and Indonesia, respectively;  
- undertook the Fourth Triennial Review pursuant t o Article 6 of PSI Agreement, and 
took note of the draft factual report prepared by the Secretariat in document 
G/VAL/W/ 307;  
(f) The work of the Technical Committee on Customs Valuation and related activities of the 
WCO Secretariat    
- took note of the reports  by the World Customs Organization on the work of the 
Technical Committee on Cus toms Valuation, including its 44th session 
(8 to 12 May 2017) and 45th session (23 to 26 October  2017), as well as related 
activities of the WCO  Secretariat;     
(g) Annual Review a nd Annual R eport to the Council for Trade i n Goods  
- At the meeting of 6 November the Committee : 
- [adopted  the Annual Review of the Implementati on and Operation of the 
Customs  Valuation Agreement (G/VAL/W/ 306), and requested the Secretariat to 
update it to take account of the 6 November  meeting; ] and, 
- [adopted the Annual Report to the Council for Trade in Goods (G/VAL/W/ 305), 
and requested the Secretariat to update it to take account of the 6 November  
meeting .] 
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1 To be issued