As part of its continued collaboration with the State Customs Service of Ukraine, CLDP conducted the first of a series of workshops on Customs Valuation and Classification on June 20-24, 2011 in Kyiv. Led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the workshop featured comprehensive trainings on general and specific topics of valuation and classification, origin determination, CBP resources on classification and valuation, advance rulings and CBP’s structure of regulation and rulings. The program featured several sessions of short exercises and complex case studies that required participants to break out into smaller groups and engaged in active discussion. Participants included 24 Ukrainian central and regional customs officials as well as trainers from the Khmelnytskiy Training Center of the State Customs Service of Ukraine. The Deputy Head of the State Customs Training Center and Chief Specialist of the Education and Organizational Division of the Training Center expressed their support for the workshop and hope for continued cooperation with CLDP.

CLDP and CBP plan to hold a second workshop addressing entry process, rulings procedure and additional valuation and classification topics in November 2011.

The aim of the series of programs is to ensure that the State Customs Service of Ukraine’s customs valuation and classification process is fair, harmonized, and transparent and meets the requirements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement as well as to thoroughly train a cadre of officials from the State Customs Service of Ukraine on all aspects of customs valuation, who will, in turn, conduct trainings in their respective offices. Ensuring a fair, transparent, and harmonized customs valuation process in Ukraine will contribute to creating a business environment conducive to increased foreign direct investment.