The 13th Meeting of the Heads of Asia/Pacific WCO Regional Training Centres (RTCs) was held in Malacca, Malaysia on 3-4 November 2015. The meeting was opened by Dato’ Sri Khazali Ahmad, Director General of the Royal Malaysian Customs Department and Vice-Chair for the Asia/Pacific region, and was chaired by Ms. Azimah Abd Hamid, Director of RTC Malaysia (AKMAL: Akademi Kastam Diraja Malaysia). In addition to the delegates from 7 RTCs in the region (RTC China, RTC Fiji, RTC Hong Kong China, RTC India, RTC Japan, RTC Korea and RTC Malaysia), representatives from the WCO Secretariat, Asia/Pacific Vice-Chair Office and Asia/Pacific Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB A/P) participated in the meeting.
The heads of RTCs at the meeting exchanged views on how to enhance Customs capacities through strengthend professionalism and human resource networks so as to ultimately contribute to Customs modernization efforts in the region. The two days of discussions produced recommendations and guidance to contribute to the Virtual Customs Orientation Academy (VOCA), to enhance the Regional Training Evaluation Package taking into account the region’s experiences in its application, and to support implementation of Customs professionalism and the People Development Diagnostic Tool, as well as furthering discussion of the ‘Centre of Excellence’ concept of RTCs that have been in place in the region. Participants also benefitted from the opportunity to learn from each other on training strategies and activities of the respective RTCs, especially the RTC Malaysia as host of the meeting.