At the invitation of Mr. Dorel Fronea, Vice-President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) and Coordinator of Customs activity of Romania, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya visited Bucharest, Romania on 31 October and 1 November 2016. He had a meeting with Ms. Anca Dragu, Minister of Public Finance, and Mr. Dragos Doros, President of ANAF, to discuss the reorganization of Customs.
Secretary General Mikuriya explained the essential characteristics of Customs with its wide mission that includes trade facilitation and protection of society, in addition to revenue collection. He also touched upon Customs-specific operational practices and hence the need to preserve Customs’ identity within a revenue authority such as ANAF, as well as the requirement to allocate sufficient resources to Customs.
In the area of illicit trade in cigarettes, a major concern for Romania, he commended the efforts of Romanian Customs in strengthening cross-border cooperation with Customs administrations in its neighbouring countries, which is also one of the objectives of the WCO's Tobacco Programme. The Minister and the President welcomed Dr. Mikuriya’s explanations and briefed him about their plans to enhance Customs’ control capacities, including combating cigarette smuggling, through reorganization measures such as establishing a shorter chain of command between Customs and its mobile units.
Secretary General Mikuriya had a separate meeting with the Romanian Customs’ management team to discuss organizational and human resource matters, including the topics of integrity and partnership with business. He also visited the air cargo unit to witness the performance of the canine programme in detecting drugs, cigarettes and currency, and was briefed on how a mobile team could contribute to Customs controls along the supply chain.
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Photo (from left to right):
(1) Mr. Dragos Doros, President of ANAF, Mr. Kunio Mikuriya, WCO Secretary General, Ms. Anca Dragu, Minister of Public Finance, and Mr. Dorel Fronea, Vice President of ANAF and Coordinator of Customs activity of Romania;
(2) Group photo with the Romanian Customs’ management team.