INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMS DAY
On 26 January, the global customs community celebrated the International Customs day. WCO Secretary General, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, revealed the theme of the year “Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem”. He invited customs administrations around the world to implement the theme throughout this year and beyond, and reflect on how best to operate in a fully digital environment and create an operating model that captures and exploits data from across the trade ecosystem.
Over the years, digital technology has evolved rapidly and Customs can now tap into data from other government agencies, commercially available databases, and open-source information platforms such as digitized global public records and multilingual news sources. To build data ecosystems, or consolidate existing ones, different enabling actions may be considered: i) establishing formal data governance to ensure the relevance, accuracy and timeliness of data; ii) making use of the standards developed by the WCO and other institutions regarding data format and data exchange; iii) providing appropriate management of data to ensure that the right people have access to the right data, and that data protection regulations are respected; and, iv) adopting progressive approaches, such as data analytics, to collect and successfully exploit data to drive decision-making.
In order to nurture a data-driven culture, administrations need to enhance the data-literacy of their staff - in other words, their ability to interpret and analyze data accurately. Staff also need to understand the bigger picture, namely the impact of Customs on the effective protection of society, trade facilitation and fair revenue collection. Customs administrations are invited to consider leveraging data in their relationships with other actors along the supply chain, as well as making data available to the public and academia as a means of enhancing transparency, stimulating the production of knowledge and enabling dialogue with civil society.
Source: World Customs Organization