8^th - 12^th January 2024, Melaka, Malaysia

The WCO Regional Workshop on Customs Enforcement Network (CEN) Applications was held in Melaka, Malaysia, from 8^th to 12^th January 2024 with the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of China (CCF-China). A total of 24 Customs officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vanuatu and Viet Nam 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.

Dato’ Anis Rizana Binti Mohd Zainudin, the Director General of Royal Malaysian Customs joined the official opening ceremony and expressed her gratitude to the WCO, ROCB A/P and the CCF China for choosing Malaysia as the host country. She emphasized that the CEN application was conceived to assist the Customs enforcement community in gathering data and information for intelligence purposes. Its functions allow users to mine data, and this was crucial in terms of defining strategies, preparing risk indicators and identifying trends. Ms. Ye appreciated the Royal Malaysian 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 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 home administrations’ ability to adapt to the fast-evolving environment.

Over the span of 5 days, important topics relating to use of CEN and CENcomm data and promotion of nCEN Application in AP region were examined and discussed. The beneficiary Members also had the chance to join the practical exercises, which deepened their understanding of the CEN applications.

This Regional workshop provided an ample opportunity for Member Administrations to pool the collective wisdom, share best practices, and forge alliances that will strengthen the enforcement efforts among members.

For more information, please contact rocb@rocbap.org