Customs Cooperation Committee Regional Capacity Building Seminar

The regional seminar was the first activity launched in support of the training component of the Common Action Plan. The seminar was coordinated by a team including ECGF Director Shamshad Akhtar, Jeffrey Liang, Ying Qian, and Loreli de Dios, under the overall supervision of Akhtar. Participants came from Azerbaijan, the People’s Republic of China, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the seminar was to help the participants gain knowledge on modern customs practices and on major international efforts to facilitate trade to strengthen institutional capacity of customs administrations. Among the issues discussed were

• customs integrity and the Arusha Declaration,
• the revised Kyoto Convention,
• the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement, and
• risk management.

Participants

The seminar was coordinated by East and Central Asia Department and brought together about 35 customs officials from the participating ADB’s developing member countries.