10-14 September 2019, Suva, Fiji

WCO Sub-regional Workshop on Small Island Economies (SIEs) was held on 10-14 September 2019 at the WCO Regional Training Center in Suva, Fiji, with sponsorship of the Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF), Oceania Customs Organization (OCO), Commonwealth, The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) and Her Majesty Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The workshop was organized in cooperation with the WCO, ROCB A/P and the Fiji Revenue and Customs Services (FRCS) with 18 Customs administrations and 27 participants from 8 WCO Members and 10 non-WCO Member of OCO members took part in this Workshop, which was led by 3 resource persons from the WCO Secretariat and Australia.  Mr. Norikazu Kuramoto, Head of the ROCB A/P joined the Workshop as one of the facilitators. 

The Workshop was designed for small islands Customs administration to guide for further connecting global value chain. The Workshop program captured a wide range of topics namely on Safety and Security, Trade and Passenger Facilitation, Revenue Collection and Risk Management. The program focused on discussing common and unique challenges which are islands Customs administration faced.  Through the Workshop, the participants reviewed and assessed respective administrations’ current situations on these areas and their priority and recommendation for their future way forward. 

Mr. Kuramoto made a presentation on the regional capacity building approach and expressed ROCB A/P’ commitment to SIEs initiative.  In addition to the demand-driven planning exercise, he explained the ROCB A/P’s initiatives in monitoring post-workshop impacts by way of Follow-Up Action Survey.  He showed some of the findings from the latest Survey and encouraged them to institutionalize the lessons-learned from this Sub-regional Workshop through engaged post-workshop actions.

For more information, please write to us at rocb@rocbap.org.