The Department of Economic Relations at the Ministry of Trade began holding the first joint working sessions to update and amend the Iraqi Harmonized Customs Tariff file, one of the files for joining the World Trade Organization. " The Director General of the Department, Riyadh Fakher Al-Hashemi, said in a statement: "The first session was held with the participation of the technical committee specialized in updating the Harmonized System in the General Authority of Customs in Baghdad and the Customs Department in the Kurdistan Regional Government, in coordination with international experts from the International Trade Center ITC, in order to move from the 2017 version to the 2022 version." He pointed out that "the meeting sessions will discuss the required update requirements according to the Harmonized System in its updated version HS2022 of the Harmonized System, which is used to classify goods descriptions internationally and in accordance with the standards of the World Customs Organization (WCO), in l ine with the periodic update changes to the system. The ministry's reports indicate that the initiation of these amendments comes "in implementation of the directives of the Minister of Trade and the Chairman of the National Committee concerned with accession" to maintain the momentum of work and coordination between the government agencies represented in the committee, in a way that facilitates and accelerates Iraq's obtaining full membership and taking its regional and international role in the global economic and trade map, especially after the success of the third round of Iraq's negotiations that took place last July after a hiatus of sixteen years. Source: National Iraqi News Agency