Yalta, Ukraine, 09-11 October 2012
At the invitation of the RTC Ukraine, representatives of the Vice Chair’s office of the WCO Europe Region, the WCO Secretariat, the Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB) and five of the six Regional Training Centres (RTCs) held their regular fifth meeting in Yalta, Ukraine on 9-11 October 2012. A representative from the Institute of International Business and Law at St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies in the Russian Federation also attended the meeting as an observer.
The participants were given an overview by the ROCB, the WCO Secretariat and the Vice Chair’s office of strategic directions and recent and upcoming activities in Europe in the areas of Capacity Building and development of human resources and training.
The participants welcomed the work carried out during the past year by the ROCB in Baku. They re-confirmed the Office’s role in strengthening the coordination of Capacity Building activities in the region, supporting mutual assistance arrangements among members in the field of Capacity Building, creating channels of permanent interaction with the members and stakeholders and forwarding the WCO Capacity Building agenda in the region.
Discussions also focused around the work on publishing the Customs Scientific Journal of the Europe region, launching the regional Website, the more active use of the WCO CLIKC and e-learning platforms. Progress was made and concrete steps forward were established for undertakings by the ROCB and several RTCs to produce translations into Russian of the WCO e-learning modules and key WCO tools and documents. The participants approved in principle the ROCB’s concept proposal to work on enhancing cooperation in the area of Customs training and human resources development.
The meeting also confirmed the importance for projects in the area of Capacity Building to exploit the potential of various international organizations active in the region such as EU, OSCE, UNECE, ADB, World Bank, EU/UNDP BOMCA, etc.
The representative of RTC Astana suggested that the next meeting of the WCO Europe’s regional structures be held in Kazakhstan.