On 23 September 2022, the Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, met with the leadership team of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Affairs Department in Washington DC.

The CBP Commissioner, Mr. Chris Magnus, welcomed Dr. Mikuriya and expressed his strong support for the WCO’s activities, such as raising awareness about the role of Customs in fragile and conflict-affected situations and engaging e-commerce actors, including the ones involved in platforms for sharing advance electronic data.  

During a roundtable with CBP leadership, including Executive Assistant Commissioners, Secretary General Mikuriya shared the WCO’s priorities and his appreciation of the United States’ engagement in the WCO’s core activities. The leadership team expressed its strong willingness to contribute to the wide-ranging WCO agenda by sharing its experience and expertise in areas such as Green Customs, digitalization and information technology (IT) security, passenger control, drones and other technology, data standardization and statistics, and integrity by data.  

In a separate meeting with the IMF, Dr. Mikuriya explained the WCO’s priorities for raising Customs awareness and capacity in collecting and using data. He also stressed the multiple functions of Customs, including combatting illicit trade. The IMF expressed its support for the work of the WCO regarding data and indicated its growing interest in WCO’s progress in relation to trade facilitation, while underscoring the importance of collecting data through ISOCA (International Survey of Customs Administration), a joint IMF-WCO initiative.