On International Customs Day, the Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Kunio Mikuriya, has launched a message this Wednesday (26.01.2022/XNUMX/XNUMX) in which it encourages “Expand customs digital transformation by adopting data culture and creating a data ecosystem".
In his remarks, the WCO's top official urged the global customs community to implement this mandate throughout 2022 and beyond, as well as to reflect on how best to operate in a fully digital environment and to create an operating model that captures and exploits data from across the entire trade ecosystem.
Analyzing over the years, Kunio Mikuriya asserted that “digital technology has evolved rapidly and Customs can now access data from other government agencies, available commercial databases, and open source information platforms such as digitized global public records and multilingual news sources.” He argued that data can be used effectively and this depends on several factors related to data ethics, including trade secrecy, privacy, and legal issues related to the use of data by customs and tax administrations, and the importance attached to innovation in public administrations.
Given this reality, the Secretary General of the WCO, on behalf of the global customs community, advocated considering the following: Enabling actions to build data ecosystems, or consolidate existing ones: I) establish formal data governance to ensure data relevance, accuracy and timeliness; II) make use of standards developed by the WCO and other institutions regarding data format and data exchange; III) provide appropriate data management to ensure that authorized persons have access to the correct data and that data protection rules are respected; and IV) adopt progressive approaches, such as data analytics, to successfully collect and exploit data to drive decision-making.
The statement reminds us that, for the WCO, “a strong data culture empowers people to ask questions, challenge ideas and rely on detailed knowledge, not just intuition or instinct, to make decisions.” In this regard, administrations must improve the data literacy of their staff; in other words, their ability to accurately interpret and analyse data. Customs administrations should integrate data science into their curricula for newly recruited officials and engage in the development of distance learning courses to familiarise customs officials with data collection and analysis in order to forge a data-driven culture. Staff must also understand the bigger picture, i.e. the impact of Customs on the effective protection of society, the facilitation of trade and the fair collection of revenue.
On the other hand, in the same vein, the WCO raised the need for administrations to take advantage of data in their relations with other actors along the supply chain, as well as to make it available to the public and academia as a means of improving transparency, stimulating the production of knowledge and enabling dialogue with civil society. Sharing data analysis with other government agencies increases the role and visibility of Customs in policy formulation and in obtaining the necessary resources, including donor funding. The dissemination of customs information in society is part of the response of governments to the general demand for open governance.
In order to support Customs administrations and by way of conclusion, “the WCO Secretariat has included data-related topics on the agendas of several committees and working groups, organized awareness-raising seminars, developed e-learning modules and drafted a capacity-building framework for data analytics that was adopted by the WCO.” Additionally, in December 2020, the Council disseminated practical publications and articles in the WCO News magazine. The WCO has established a community of experts, under the name BACUDA (BAND of Customs Data Analysts), which brings together customs and data scientists with the aim of developing data analysis methodologies. Along with that, the global entity insists that it “will continue to investigate ways to collect and share information on Customs administrations to improve the way it delivers capacity development. It will also continue to conduct data-driven assessments and work with international experts to respond to requests for assistance.” (WCO statement)
Aduana News is the first Argentine customs newspaper to launch its digital version. With 20 years of experience, its publications and initiatives aim to provide the most relevant knowledge on customs issues in order to contribute to safe trade in the region.
