BISHKEK (TCA) — The Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Kunio Mikuriya, and the First Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Service of the Kyrgyz Republic (SCS), Shamil Berdaliev, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the WCO Secretariat in Brussels on 19 December, thereby accrediting the SCS’s Training Centre as a WCO Regional Training Centre.
The OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek helped the SCS to achieve this outcome within the framework of its long-term programmatic support to the SCS Training Centre. The newly acquired status of the WCO Regional Training Centre will provide for an increased geographic reach and quality of training for customs officers of the OSCE region and beyond.
Since 2009, the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek has assisted in enhancing the capacity of the SCS to facilitate cross-border trade, combat trafficking of illicit goods, and adopt modern information and customs technologies. With OSCE support, the SCS Training Centre has implemented a number of international standards in capacity-building activities, which have allowed the Training Centre to include a regional component.
Since 2009 the SCS Training Centre has trained over 1,000 Kyrgyz and 250 Afghan customs officers, and more than 100 training modules have been developed with the OSCE’s support. The SCS Training Centre’s regional status was approved unanimously at the meeting of WCO Heads of European Regional Customs Administrations in Vienna in April 2017.
In addition to regional capacity-building activities, the SCS Training Centre will now also be able to organize conferences, expert meetings, and roundtable discussions at regional and international levels. The OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek remains committed to assisting Kyrgyzstan in enhancing its ability to fulfil its OSCE commitments in these areas, further contributing to regional co-operation.
