The 7th WCO PICARD Conference was held from 25 to 27 September 2012 in Marrakesh, Morocco. The annual PICARD Conference is a joint initiative of the WCO and INCU, and this year’s conference was hosted by the University of Cadi Ayyad with support from the Customs Administration of Morocco.
Over 230 delegates representing WCO Members, the academic world, the private sector, other international organisations and other interested parties attended the conference. The Conference was co-chaired by the Vice-President of INCU, Professor Michael Wolffgang (University of Muenster), and Professors M’barek Benchanaa and Abdullah Ait Ouahman (University of Cadi Ayyad).
As a platform for Customs research, the PICARD Conference 2012 continued the theme of “Promoting Research-based Knowledge to Support Customs Decision-making” and focused on the following 3 topics.
1) Emerging and evolving risks
In today’s fast-moving landscape, Governments, including their Customs administrations, are confronted with evolving and emerging threats at the global, regional and national level. It is necessary to identify these threats and develop forward-looking mitigating actions and to build increased resilience and agility into Customs administrations. This topic is aimed at eliciting research on emerging and evolving risks and measures on how Customs administrations can develop the capacity to deal with such risks.
2) The Impact of Regional Economic Integration and Preferential Trade Arrangements on Customs Services
According to the WTO, as of 15 January 2012, some 511 notifications of regional trade agreements have been received by the WTO, and 319 are in force. The WCO also has received a significant number of notifications from its Members regarding preferential trade arrangements. It is critical to assess the impact of regional economic integration and preferential trade arrangements on Customs services.
3) Customs Strategic Human Resource Management
New demands and other drivers such as technology and re-engineering of business processes have resulted in adjustments to Customs operating models and workforce capabilities. There is a need to analyze how Customs services have adjusted or should adjust strategic human resource management through strategies integrating innovative organizational planning and performance management to deal with tomorrow’s social challenges.
In examining and analysing these issues, Conference participants were encouraged to identify a range of solutions to address identified concerns, with a particular emphasis on capacity building, improving performance and research opportunities.
For more information about the conference please visit the official 2012 PICARD Conference website.
Conference Brochures: English French
WCO Report on PICARD 2012 : http://www.wcoomd.org/reports/
Conference Presentations & Photos: Coming Soon