4 - 8 December, 2023, Jakarta, Indonesia

The WCO Sub-regional Workshop on Customs Laboratory for the ASEAN Member Countries was held in Jakarta, Indonesia from 4 to 8 December 2023 with the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of China (CCF-China). A total of 19 customs officials from the Customs administrations of Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam attended the workshop in-person. As the representative of the ROCB A/P, Ms. Zhengqing Ye, the Program Manager and Operation Manager of the CCF-China joined this workshop.

Ms. Anita Iskandar, Director of International Affairs, Indonesia Customs and Excise, highlighted that hosting this workshop was a testament to Indonesia Customs and Excise Laboratory's commitment as a Regional Customs Laboratory.She also expressed her appreciation to the WCO, the ROCB A/P and the CCF China for providing the valuable platform for exchanges among the ASEAN customs chemists. Ms. Ye expressed the sincere gratitude to Indonesian Customs for hosting this workshop and demonstrated ROCB A/P’s commitment to assisting AP Members in building their capacity in her opening remarks. During the workshop she also introduced the ROCB A/P’s capacity building activities such as 2023/24 ROCB Action Plan, Training Management Project and official publications. Furthermore, she introduced the Follow-up Actions Survey conducted by the ROCB A/P to encourage the participants to utilize lessons learnt from this workshop to improve their daily work at the customs laboratory.

Over the span of 5 days, important topics such as the role and needs of Customs Laboratories, the HS and tariff classification related to Customs Laboratory matters, and WCO Customs Laboratory Guide and other tools were discussed. A visit to the Customs laboratory in Tanjung Priok was also arranged for participants to know the equipment and methods of analyzing certain merchandizes along with the sampling techniques.

This Sub-Regional workshop provided an ample opportunity for Member Administrations to leverage the knowledge obtained during the workshop and addressed the challenges of classification during their daily work. Moreover, this workshop set up a network among ASEAN members, which will definitely enhance the cooperation and communication in the future.

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