The World Customs Organization (WCO), with the financial support of the Customs Administration of Saudi Arabia, successfully held a Regional Workshop on Coordinated Border Management (CBM), Single Window and the WCO Data Model in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 27 to 31 March 2016. Thirty seven middle management officials of the Customs Administrations from the MENA Region, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates participated in the Workshop. In addition, twelve officials of Customs’ Partner Agencies and two representatives from the private sector attended the event.

Mr. Abdulah AlMogehem, the Deputy Director General of the Customs Administration of Saudi Arabia in his opening remarks highlighted the importance of Single Window development by governments to simplify cross-border trade regulatory procedures which will reduce inefficiency and redundancy of border management processes.

The event highlighted the importance of CBM principles as the basis for the development of a Single Window Environment to enable coordination and cooperation between all relevant government agencies involved in border management. The Workshop also focused on the importance of strategic planning and formal governance structures in establishing a Single Window Environment. Other important topics included Business Process Re-engineering as well as Data Harmonization, using the WCO Data Model as the interoperability framework to lay the foundation for CBM and Single Window.