International Customs Day (26/01)

Every year on January 26, the world celebrates International Customs Day —, a professional holiday for all customs workers on the planet.

In November 1952, the Convention on the Formation of the Customs Cooperation Council came into force. On January 26, 1953, the first session of the Customs Cooperation Council, which in 1994 received its current name — World Customs Organization, WCO, took place in Brussels. 17 European countries were represented by the heads of their customs services.

30 years later, in 1983, this particular day was chosen as the annual holiday of International Customs Day. The ideas of the customs community received a great response.

Quite quickly, from a modest organization uniting a limited number of European states, the Customs Cooperation Council turned into an authoritative organization of international scale. Currently, the World Customs Organization brings together 185 member states that manage more than 98% of all international trade. Three quarters of them are developing countries.

The work of WCO is concentrated in the development of international instruments and conventions on issues such as classification of goods, assessment of customs value, rules of origin of goods, customs duties, security of the supply chain, simplification of international trade procedures, combating offenses in the customs sphere and counterfeit products (protection of intellectual property rights), fight against corruption.

The Russian Federation has participated in the work of the World Customs Organization since 1992 as the legal successor of the USSR, which joined the WCO on July 8, 1991. The Federal Customs Service of Russia, through the organization of international customs cooperation, solves a set of problems in the field of international activities that contribute to the development of foreign trade of the Russian Federation.

International Customs Day is an occasion not only for international solidarity among customs services around the world, summing up the work for the year and drawing up plans for the coming one, but also for attracting public attention to the importance of the role of customs in the economic and social development of society. In addition, every year events within the framework of the Day are held under a certain motto.

Today, more than 800 thousand people celebrate their professional holiday — is the total number of customs officers around the world. The Russian customs service, numbering 68 thousand people, is one of the largest. And Russian customs officers celebrate their national professional holiday on October 25.



Postcard «January 26 — International Customs Day»

1