WCO – INTEGRATED BORDER MANAGEMENT: IS IT ESSENTIAL?
Across the world, national customs administrations are increasingly turning to Information technology (IT) for solutions to their customs procedures. The annual World Customs Organisation meeting considered the issue of integrated border management and asked the question: is IT essential? Without exception, all the contributors and participants responded that IT is absolutely essential. However the implementation and form chosen are not always the same. The CONEX delegation – Alban GRUSON, CEO, Bertrand GRUSON, Project Manager, and Lance THOMPSON, Customs Anthropologist – participated actively in order to follow the evolution in this domain. .
NATIONAL CUSTOMS SOLUTIONS
 One of the highlights of this annual meeting is the presentation of national systems from other countries. The Deputy Managing Director for the Mongolian customs authority, Mme OYUNCHIMEG, described the evolution of her national IT system.
Mongolia had first called on an international solution developed by the UN which, between 1995 and 2001, allowed customs officials to become accustomed to modern technology and to simplify customs procedures. However as early as the year 2000, the system started to show its limitations and the customs authority decided to repatriate the architecture and development of its customs system, enabling it to evolve and accompany the growth in external trade flows. The government has set itself the objective of becoming one of the top 10 Asian countries in terms of computerisation and in this context, last year the customs authority called on the services of Korea in order to continue the evolution of its systems towards a single window.
China reaffirmed its place in Asia and the progression of its computerisation since the end of the 1970s. Mr LI, IT Department Director for Chinese Customs, presented his administration’s three ‘e’s: e-Customs, a system for professional customs clearance management; e-administration, an internal system enabling risk management and the application of laws; and e-Port, a single window which allows the operator to communicate with 11 government agencies other than customs.
Mr BALDIZON, TICA Project Manager for the Costa Rican customs administration, underlined the importance of creating a legal framework and internal structure compatible with the implementation of an IT solution. The result in Costa Rica has enabled corruption to be reduced considerably, physical and financial flows to be better controlled, and for the first time an environment has been created in which Costa Rica has no budget deficit
Mme MOSHOESHOE from the South African Border Management Direction expressed her concern about corruption that could exist before implementing an IT system. The disparity between the points of entry systems makes the deployment of a national system all the more difficult. Effectively, it is possible that different standards be used at different entry points. Moreover, it is necessary to instil a culture of co-operation and information sharing. The regulatory foundations are being laid and the project is on the right track towards development.
PUBLIC – PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP)
The Korean Customs Service introduced its current system to the conference audience as a successful public-private partnership. Mr HUR, Korean Customs officer, emphasised that the customs authorities were obliged to continue their technological development in order to meet the demands of ever-increasing flows on the one hand and a fixed number of staff on the other. In this context, the participation of the private sector in the setting up of the national single window, UNI-PASS, was essential..
M LEE from Singapore Customs and Mr THEUNISSEN from the European Commission repeated the commitment their administrations have made to consult the private sector in the implementation of their IT systems. In Singapore, the systems themselves are operated externally and the private sector participates actively in the architecture and development phases. For the European Union, the private sector is consulted on a regular basis both at EU level and at national level.
SINGLE WINDOW
Throughout the presentations mentioned above and others, one kind of solution was often referred to: the single window. It is important to underline, as was repeated here, that the universally recognised model for a single window is the one outlined in the UN-CEFACT Recommendation 33. This recommendation makes provisions for a government-level system which allows government agencies to communicate with each other. In this way, once an operator transmits information to the customs authorities, all the data required by other government agencies is sent on automatically by the system and the operator will have a single interlocutor. This is the objective of the European Union, as Mr THEUNISSEN explained, but to achieve such a goal (after 2010) it is first necessary for the customs systems of the various Member States be able to communicate with each other..
The single window proposed by the EU will cover a number of countries and allow several national customs systems to communicate. This is also the model chosen by ASEAN. Mr AREVALO from the Filipino Bureau of Customs and director of the ASEAN single window project outlined details about the regional single window and its deployment timetable. Every ASEAN member-country must launch a national system by 2008 (2012 for 4 of the member-countries); this system needs to enable communication with all the other systems via a regional platform. The data transmitted remains the property of the country which sent it and can only be viewed by countries concerned by the transaction.
An even broader project was presented by Ms WHITESIDE of the New Zealand Customs Service and which will allow more than 10 APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) countries to communicate with each other.
Other examples of single windows were presented by Mr SAKAI from the Japanese Ministry of Finance and NACCS system manager and by Mr IMBEAU of the Canada Border Services Agency. Both of these systems make it possible for a number of government agencies to communicate with each other, to standardise information upon entry at ports and airports and to offer advanced risk management. The Canadian customs authorities and the EU also expressed the importance of using the standards established by various international bodies.
The idea of a B2B, business to business, single window was discussed briefly. Such models include a project put forward by KT-NET in Korea. The panel recognised that such a system could never be made obligatory and that a number of private systems could co-exist. Even if this could improve internal company procedures, B2B communication is not the objective of Recommendation 33 of UN-CEFACT which is oriented towards public systems.
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