Through its partnership with the World Customs Organisation, four members of the OCO participated in the WCO Mercator Programme Advisor (MPA) Accreditation Workshop that was held at the Fiji Revenue & Customs Service (FRCS), WCO Regional Training Centre in Suva, Fiji from 22-26 January, 2018. The Workshop was facilitated by two Technical Officials from the WCO and the Head of the Asia/Pacific Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB A/P).
MPAs are change management experts focused on strategic planning and trade facilitation (TF) matters. The overall objective behind the accreditation of MPA’s is to ensure that capacity-building support can rely on quality people to provide quality advice and experience.
Although the OCO members given that they are non-WCO members were not able to receive the WCO accreditation, the opportunity to be pre-selected to take part in the workshop and to undertake the same assessment was an important one. Through the Workshop, the OCO members were able to get not only a better understanding of WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement but also the related WCO instruments and tools which support TFA implementation. The availability of these tools can assist members not only for TFA but also in their commitments to the different regional trade agreements that they are signatory to.
In the margins of the Workshop, OCO members with the rest of the workshop participants also took part in FRCS’s celebration of the International Customs Day on 26 January. The theme of this year’s celebration is “A secure business environment for economic development.”
The OCO extends its gratitude to the WCO and ROCB A/P for continuously availing this learning opportunity to its members and for the ongoing collaboration on customs matters.