At the invitation of the Director General of Vietnam Customs, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuc, in his capacity as Chair of the 23rd Meeting of the ASEAN Directors General of Customs, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya visited Dalat, Vietnam on 2 and 3 June 2014 to speak at this event.

In the run up to the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015, the Directors General of ten ASEAN countries reviewed the progress made to date on enhanced economic integration within ASEAN.

In his opening address, Secretary General Mikuriya commended Customs on its contribution to the AEC by enhancing connectivity at borders and expressed his commitment to support ASEAN by means of developing tools, sharing best practices and providing technical and capacity building assistance. He underlined the linkages between regional integration and the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (ATF) as the latter supports the former with improved transparency and predictability of the trade supply chain.  The ASEAN Secretary General, Mr. Le Luong Minh, also spoke in his opening address about the significance of building the AEC in which Customs will be one of the key players.

The Secretaries General of ASEAN and the WCO held a bilateral meeting and agreed that while taking account of the diversity within ASEAN, the two Organizations would work together to implement the WTO ATF and advance the realization of the AEC and beyond.

During the consultation session with the ASEAN Directors General of Customs, both the ASEAN and WCO Secretaries General updated each other on new initiatives and progress made since last year's meeting.  Secretary General Mikuriya was pleased to observe the great steps forward in their national processes to ratify the Revised Kyoto Convention made by ASEAN members yet to accede to this instrument. Following a presentation on the past and planned activities of the Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB) given by its outgoing Director, Mr. Yoshihiro Kosaka, the ASEAN Directors General expressed their appreciation for his dedicated service over the last five years.

Secretary General Mikuriya also met with members of the US-ASEAN Business Council to exchange views on the progress and expectations of the ASEAN Customs administrations.  He stressed the importance of the role played by business in improving compliance and communication with Customs and also in advocating Customs’ role to political leaders. The Business Council members thanked him for this dialogue prior to their consultation session with the ASEAN Directors General.

All the participants expressed their gratitude to Vietnam Customs and its Director General, Mr. Tuc, for its warm hospitality and excellent organization of the event.