9 July 2026, Online Meeting

ROCB A/P participated in an online meeting with the South Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on 9 July 2026 to explore opportunities for further cooperation in supporting Customs administrations across the South Asia Members.

The ADB team included Mr. Yurendra Basnett, Principal Regional Cooperation Specialist, and Mr. Satish Reddy. Regional Trade Facilitation Expert.

From ROCB A/P, Mr. Jun Tajima, Head of ROCB A/P, and Mr. Takeru Yamazaki, Program Manager for South Asia, took part in the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Tajima greeted with the recognition of collaborative history of the two organisations. He provided an overview of the role and functions of ROCB A/P, as including the Capacity Building approach. He emphasized the importance of identifying and understanding Member’s needs and information sharing with stakeholders like the ADB in order to implement impactful and sustainable capacity-building activities.

Mr. Yamazaki, who recently assumed the role of Program Manager for South Asia, introduced himself and shared his previous experience in the field of Customs technical cooperation.

Mr. Yurendra and Mr. Satish of the ADB introduced an overview of the SASEC Customs Subgroup Meeting hosted by the Secretariat of the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC). They welcomed the future participation of the representative(s) from the ROCB A/P to working group meetings to support Customs Administrations in their capacity development and noted that ADB and ROCB A/P are well positioned to provide mutually complementary support to South Asian Members.

The meeting concluded with a shared commitment to maintain close communication and to explore practical avenues for strengthening collaboration in support of Customs Capacity Building efforts across the South Asia region.

For more information, please contact ROCB A/P at rocb@rocbap.org