On 18 June 2019, the Professional Associates (PAs) deployed to the Headquarters of the WCO under the WCO-Japan Career Development Programme (CDP) reported the results of their ten-month research to the WCO's senior management. Each of the 10 PAs had undertaken research into different Customs-related issues: some of them studied topics of global importance that were being examined in various WCO committees, while others focused on subjects that would add practical value to their home administrations as well as to other administrations facing similar situations.

Coming from Angola, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tunisia, the PAs offered informative presentations on the role of information technologies in trade facilitation, on the effects of transit corridors on trade, on practical steps to reinforce integrity at an institutional level, on Customs valuation and nomenclature matters, on customs-to business partnership, on the impact of e-commerce on IPR infringement practices, on the customs’ role in the digital trade, on the need to implement API/PNR data collection including for cruise ships, and on empirical methods that revealed the correlation between terrorist attacks and trade flows. The approach taken by the PAs in conducting their research enabled them to either identify emerging problems or find innovative solutions to old problems.

At the conclusion of the report-back session, WCO Secretary General Dr Kunio Mikuriya expressed his satisfaction at the quality of the work presented by the PAs, in particular the remarkable results that they had achieved during their research, which he felt would add value to the Organization and to the Customs community as a whole. The Secretary General also expressed his gratitude to the experts and tutors that had mentored the PAs.