The Secretary General of the WCO, Mr. Kunio Mikuriya and the Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Sergio Mujica, have inaugurated this Monday 8th of November 2010 the WCO’s 53rd Fellowship Programme. They both enhanced the historical dimension of this session as it welcomes for the very first time in 25 years of experience 10 Spanish-speaking fellows. Managers from Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay will follow the 6 weeks programme in Spanish from 8^th November to the 17 December 2010.

This ground-breaking initiative has opened up one of the most renowned WCO Leadership and Management Development programmes to a wider audience. It shows the Secretariat’s will to go further in ensuring efficient dissemination and implementation of the WCO standards. This first Spanish-speaking session has also enabled the Secretariat to tie closer links with Business as some of its Private Sector partners have stood up to support the Customs Community’s efforts to foster their management capacities.

Such an important event has been indeed made possible thanks to the financial support of donors from the private sector such as: ASAPRA-the Association of Professional Customs Brokers-, CLADEC -the Conference of Express Companies of America and the Caribbean- and World BASC - Business Alliance for Secure Commerce-, as well as the WCO, The Customs Cooperation Fund of the European Union and the Customs administrations of Angola, Argentina and Uruguay.

This 6-weeks Programme, which its first 4 weeks take place in the WCO headquarters in Brussels, has also benefited from the valuable support of the Customs Administration of Spain which will host the fellows’ study trip during the last two weeks of the Programme.