During an opening ceremony on 21 August 2020 in presence of the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) Mrs. Fane W. Vave and staff, His Excellency Mr. John Feakes, Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, officially launched the Container Control Programme and the WCO Cargo Targeting System in Fiji.

The Commissioner of the Australian Border Force and the CCP Coordinators of WCO and UNODC participated online in this ceremony.

The speakers highlighted the challenges of illicit trade in the Oceania region and the commitment of FRCS in addressing these problems by modern risk profiling approaches while maintaining an adequate level of trade facilitation. In this context, Fiji should be a reference for other countries in the region. Moreover, FRCS managed to create its central risk profiling team with full functionalities in just one year – a rather unique achievement considering the broad portfolio of the CCP training and the technical complexity to install WCO CTS.

Fiji’s participation in the CCP and the installation of the WCO CTS is funded by the Australian Government under the Fiji - Australia Vuvale partnership via the Australian Border Force which, jointly with CCP experts, provided significant training input to establish the central risk profiling capacity in the newly established National Border Control Targeting Center in Suva.

WCO and UNODC look forward to continue this successful cooperation with FRCS and the Australian Border Force in the wider Oceania region.