Draft Mexican Customs Reform to Simplify Processes, Crack Down on Corruption

The Mexican Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit is proposing a new draft customs law that would streamline current requirements and take measures against corruption in the Mexican General Administration of Customs, according to a May 28 report in the Mexican newspaper El Economista.

Under the draft proposal, Mexico would eliminate two of its current six statutory customs regimes -- strategic bonded zones and bonded warehouses -- and fold them into the four remaining processes for importation, exportation, transit and special economic zones. Mexico also plans to eliminate altogether its customs regime for manufacturing, transformation or repair in a bonded zone because it is not used, though current program users will be able to continue under the program until their authorization expires or they move to the special economic zone regime, the report said.

The goal of the changes is to move Mexico up in global ease of doing business rankings. The current scheme is “in large part responsible for the fact that Mexico isn’t able to advance from the 50’s range in trade facilitation indices created by the World Bank,” the draft proposal says.

In an effort to tackle corruption, the draft proposal also would provide for awards and incentives for career Mexican customs officers for honesty and efficiency, the report said. It lays out ethical and social principles that Mexican customs officials must follow, and in return would guarantee that customs officers aren’t rotated too frequently between locations, given temporary work contracts or suffer from a lack of training.

Meanwhile, Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador recently nominated Ricardo Ahued Bardahuil to lead the country’s customs agency, said a separate report in El Economista. Ahued would replace Ricardo Peralta Saucedo, who led the first stages of Mexico’s planned customs reform but is assuming the role of subsecretary of governance. Ahued, from Veracruz, currently sits in the Mexican Senate.