Building a European Regional Capacity Building Office

On the 8-9th of September 2010, the WCO Director of Capacity Building, mr. Lars Karlsson, visited Baku in Azerbaijan to review the progress of the establishment of the Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB) for the European region. In a bi-lateral meeting at the headquarters, the Chairman of the Azerbaijan Customs Control Committee Mr. Aydin Aliyev, briefed Mr. Karlsson about the on-going work to establish the sixth and final WCO Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB).

 

After the meeting, the Chairman and the Director visited the lively construction site where the new regional office is being built. The tentative time-table for the opening of the office is February 2011.

During the meeting the Director expressed his gratitude to the Government of Azerbaijan, and to Chairman Aliyev personally, for the excellent cooperation through the entire establishment process and the generous offer to host and support the new office.

In a comment Mr. Karlsson said: "This new office will be the coordination point for capacity building in the largest of WCO regions, namely the European region. The ROCB Europe will be located to a modern new building with all the necessary facilities to organize the capacity building work. Customs officers from different parts of Europe will be invited to work here as a regional team with the aim to coordinate, facilitate and boost modernization of Customs operation all throughout this widespread region. The condition for people to serve here are excellent and I am convinced that this office will become a very important part of the WCO Capaity Building infrastructure for many years to come".

During the mission to Azerbaijan the Director also visited the new Customs border post of Samur - Khachmaz - on the border to Russia. This border post is a state of the art one stop border post with a operational single window displaying a best practice example on coordinated border management.