At the invitation of Commissioner YOON Young-Sun of the Korea Customs Service, Secretary General Mikuriya attended the opening ceremony of the WCO Asia-Pacific Regional Training Center (RTC) at the Korea Customs Border Control Training Center (CBCTC) in Cheonan, Korea on 8 September 2010.

CBCTC was designated as the sixth RTC by the Asia-Pacific Heads of Customs meeting that took place in Seoul, Koreain May 2010 and the Memorandum of Understanding with the WCO was signed during the June 2010 Council sessions.

In his opening speech the Secretary General appreciated Korean Customs’ willingness to share its experience of Customs’ contribution to Korea’s remarkable economic development by hosting the new RTC.He also expressed his expectation for the Asia Pacific region to provide more expertise in developing global standards through the RTC network of knowledge.The first WCO regional workshop on risk management started at the new RTC during the same week.

Later, the Secretary General went to the city of Gwacheon to meet First Vice Finance Minister YIM Jong-Yongto discuss future Korean contributionto WCO capacity building. He also visited Samsung Electronics, one of the WCO Private Sector Consultative Group’s members, to appreciatetheir contribution to the Customs-Business partnership.