The British International Freight Association (BIFA) is warning shippers and forwarders in the EU that they are required to conduct an impact self-assessment to ensure procedures and documents are in place before applying to become an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO).

"The non-mandatory AEO system must be up and running by January 1 and [UK] companies can start applying from July 1," said Colin Davis, a senior policy advisor of the UK's HM Revenue and Customs, the man responsible AEO introduction.



"It is not possible at this stage to predict the level of take up by UK import and export traders, forwarders, customs brokers etc, but HMRC is unlikely to be ready to start issuing AEO certificates before March 2008," he said."



Rather than applying on July 1 and risk being under prepared, Mr Davis suggested that interested parties study the application form, questionnaire and explanatory notes available on HMRC's website. He also recommends an internal audit of the procedures that will be examined by HMRC during the accreditation process.



In adopting the AEO regime, the EU is said to be aligning itself with other countries, including the US. Bilateral discussions have also been announced with other nations including Japan, China and EFTA countries.



AEO status can be granted to traders by EU member-state customs from January 1 as AEO is a non-mandatory EU-level supply chain security standard for mainly EU-based economic entities involved in international trade between the EU and other third countries, covered by customs legislation.



The guiding principle that came out of the conference is that by achieving AEO status, traders would be demonstrating to the regulatory authorities their commitment to compliance and could expect to see more security facilitations and customs simplifications in return.



"The requirement is equivalent to ISO accreditation," said Penny Hooper, global logistics manager of shoe retailer Clarks. "We will expect our service providers to follow suit, in much the same way as the wholesalers to whom we sell our products will expect it of us."