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Kang ready to share experience, knowhow with member nations
By Lee Kyung-min
Korea has vowed to take a leading role in fostering talented customs officials worldwide by capitalizing on its unique experience and knowhow in "capacity building" in administration.
Organized by the Korea Customs Service (KCS), capacity building is an initiative to help develop effective and efficient customs administration in developing countries.
Most developing nations are struggling to tackle many of the issues Korea used to have decades ago. In this regard, they can take a cue from Korea in their customs administration efficiency as the KCS did from other developed peers.
Korea is the only country that has transformed itself from a recipient country of official development assistance (ODA) to a significant donor.
A major contribution to this was made by the KCS which organizes up to around 50 projects annually to help advance customs administration in developing peers.
As a leading member of World Customs Organization (WCO) comprised of 183 countries representing over 98 percent of international trade, the KCS continues to offer training, consulting and multilateral aid utilizing ODA funds and Customs Cooperation Fund-Korea(CCF-K it established at WCO.
Hands-on experience is also offered through field training where visitors learn about Korea's strong suits including the "single window" program, a unified control method to implement e-customs administration.
Korea has organized training programs over the past 10 years.
A total of 3,471 officials from developing countries have undergone 214 training programs and seminars from 2009 to 2018.
The officials underwent training at the Customs Border Control Training Institute, a WCO-designated Regional Training Center in the Asia-Pacific region.
High-level government officials are invited to Korea for an in-depth discussion on effective and efficient customs administration policymaking.
Various events are organized to help them exchange ideas with their Korean counterparts and get better acquainted, a process that later becomes a valuable asset in maintaining a continued, productive relationship.
For about 10 working-level customs officials, an intensive, advanced training course is offered. Their Korean counterparts introduce the country's advanced customs administration.
Hands-on experience is also offered through field training where visitors learn about Korea's strong suits including the "single window" program, a unified control method to implement e-customs administration. Other training programs cover blockchain-based clearance, big data analysis and AI-Xray for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.
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| Kang Tae-il |
Rich experience, knowhow
Korea has decades of training experience fully capitalizing on the well-established infrastructure and ICT experts nurturing programs, combined with efficient manpower management
The areas have been top priority to advance customs administration to help stabilize the system in a smooth, consistent and effective manner.
Highly skilled, experienced Korean officials have organized a full, tighter coordination between online and offline training, supported by the WCO e-learning platform and training opportunities.
The programs are designed to help immediate policy implementation without glitches.
Areas of key concern include technology development, classification, post audit and smuggling enforcement.
Korea has achieved a medium- to long-term capacity building, following regular reviews of customs administration performance.
Greater outcomes are made via exchanges on systematic, result-oriented feedback concerning support areas and priorities from the members.
In order to ramp up its efforts to support developing nations, the KCS will have Kang Tae-il, its Information and International Affairs Bureau Director General, run as a Korean candidate for the WCO Director of the Capacity Building Directorate in 2019.
The veteran customs official with 24-years of experience remains confident that his experience and expertise will help advance effective and efficient customs administration in developing nations.
"I will strengthen regular monitoring of the members' overall system implementation in stages, taking into account their pace and degree of development so as to provide more tailored advice. I will have communication channels always open with me so that members experiencing difficulties are able to consult at any time," he said.
Kang made a major contribution in the successful development and establishment of UNI-PASS, an electronic clearance system which enhances swift customs clearance and logistics service convenience.
The e-clearance system increases work efficiency by minimizing manual errors and improving input accuracy by auto-generation of trade records.
It also simplifies work processes via automatic acceptance of declarations which reduces document review time.
Kang plans to help Korea make additional financial contribution to the WCO capacity building projects for their sustainable operation and will continue to support the introduction of cutting-edge ICT to customs system.
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Since 2011 when the KCS established the CCF-K, the agency has spent $16.87 million (15 million euros) on WCO capacity building activities. Korea will spend $16.87 million over the next five years.
The funds are used to ensure trade facilitation and the security of global supply chains to strengthen their capabilities for the future.
In addition to CCF, Korea will spend $25 million in ODA in 2019 and plans to increase the amount by $22 million for the next five years.
