ICAO and the World Customs Organization on Tuesday announced an agreement pledging "expanded cooperation" on air cargo security.

"Closer collaboration between WCO and ICAO is expected to significantly minimize the operational and financial impact of security measures by reducing or eliminating duplication in systems and processes while enhancing synergies," the organizations said in a joint statement.

ICAO is endeavoring to develop new standards for securing air cargo supply chains in the aftermath of last October's printer cartridge bomb incident.

ICAO and WCO said they have formed a joint "Technical Experts Group on Air Cargo Security" to analyze issues including electronic advance data on shipments, information sharing (such as government-to-government and government-to-industry) and "risk management".

In an interview with ATW last week, ICAO Secretary General Raymond Benjamin noted that securing supply chains is "a customs issue.The goods that are being transported are moving by a variety of means. You have cargo on the highway, and then it goes on ships and on aircraft. So we have to look at a comprehensive way of building a security regime."

ICAO Aviation Security Branch Chief Jim Marriott added, "We are working very closely with the World Customs Organization in no small part because the world's customs system has increasingly provided for electronic data interchange ... There may very well be rich opportunities to mine that information to find cargo that is of higher risk and in need of higher scrutiny."