At the invitation of Mr. Ahmed Bin Abdullah Al-Jamal, Chairman of the Qatar General Authority of Customs, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, WCO Secretary General, visited Doha, Qatar on 18 and 19 September 2022. He attended the opening session of the WCO Regional Workshop on Risk Management, Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which was also the inaugural activity of the newly established WCO Regional Training Centre (RTC) in Qatar. The regional workshop brought together 18 delegates from the WCO’s North of Africa, Near and Middle East (MENA) region.
In his opening speech, Dr. Mikuriya thanked Qatar for its long-standing financial support in hosting regional training activities since 2014 and was pleased to note that the initial training activity held at the WCO RTC in Qatar focused on the timely topic of data analytics and its use for risk management. As this was the first regional workshop on data, following the WCO Council’s adoption of the WCO Data Strategy, he hoped that the successful sharing of national experiences and strategies in this domain would be replicated in other regions.
Secretary General Mikuriya was also given an update on the progress regarding Qatar’s online Customs Clearance Single Window “Al-Nadeeb” and with the Sports Events Management System to facilitate Customs procedures during events such as the upcoming World Cup 2022 in Qatar. He expressed his appreciation of Customs’ role in addressing the country’s priorities and suggested that Qatar shares its experience of managing major sports events with other Members.
During a meeting with Qatar’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Ali Bin Ahmed Al-Kuwari, Dr. Mikuriya discussed and further explored areas of cooperation, including how to tackle the rapid growth of e-commerce. Minister Al-Kuwari reiterated his strong support for Customs modernization to keep pace with his country’s expanding maritime and air cargo trade. He pointed out that the modernization process included the renewal of the public infrastructure, including the new port project of Qatar, the Hamad Port, where the RTC was located.