30 November-03 December 2020, Online Workshop hosted by WCO

The WCO Virtual Regional Workshop on Disaster Management and Supply Chain Continuity in time of COVID-19 for the Asia-Pacific region was held from 30 November to 3 December 2020. The Workshop was organized by the WCO under the sponsorship of the government of Japan. Mr. Norikazu Kuramoto, Head of the ROCB A/P, Ms. Yuko Mamiya, Program Manager, and Ms. Vareemon CHAIRUNGSRILERT, Program Coordinator of the ROCB A/P attended the Workshop and discussed how to address the challenges related to the disaster management and supply chain continuity in the pandemic. This workshop is the first of a series of regional workshops for collecting Member administrations’ best practices to develop the WCO Guidelines on disaster management and supply chain continuity as part of the “COVID-19 Project” funded by Japan.

The workshop kicked off with the opening remarks of Mr. Pranab Kumar Das, Director, Compliance and Facilitation, WCO, and Mr. Kuramoto, Head of ROCB A/P. In the remarks, Mr. Kuramoto underlined that Customs plays a pivotal role in business continuity under the COVID-19 and the WCO provides the various tools to support the resilience efforts of Member administrations to sustain economic activities. During the workshop, Mr. Kuramoto also introduced the latest capacity building activities in the AP region by highlighting the response of the ROCB A/P to the pandemic and “new normal”.

Through the workshop, the WCO updated its leadership and activities to support Member administrations in the COVID-19 such as further enhancing information sharing on the measures implemented in response to the pandemic among Members. Also, the workshop discussed the COVID-19 related topics such as Customs’ contribution to mitigating the effect of the pandemic at three phases, namely the preparedness, response and recovery phases, and shared the experience and best practices among Member administrations.

The workshop was concluded successfully and provided useful insights that support the development of the Guideline through the active discussion among the participants. The participants expressed their appreciation to the Government of Japan, the WCO, the ROCB A/P and the presenters.

For more information, please contact at rocb@rocbap.org.