Working on the article. The 6th annual picard conference

The 6th annual PICARD Conference

The 6th annual PICARD Conference was held from 14 to 16 September 2011 at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

A key aim of the annual PICARD Conferences, held since 2006, is to promote high level exchanges on Customs education and professionalism and to encourage more academic research into topics relevant to Customs.

PICARD Conferences are jointly organized by the WCO and INCU, and this year the conference was co-hosted by Cross-border Research Association (CBRA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

The 2011 PICARD Conference focused on the following four topics and themes:

Coordinated border management – The scope of this topic included the coordination of different regulatory authorities responsible for import, export, transit and other aspects of global trade within a national customs territory, and also cooperation among customs administrations internationally, including cooperation in relation to risk management, trade facilitation, e-customs / e-border management, and the like;

Performance measurement of customs – This topic included the identification of methods to measure and benchmark Customs performance. It took a holistic approach to performance measurement, including integration between the performance of regulatory agencies and other elements of supply chain performance;

Economic security and poverty reduction -For many developing countries in particular, the revenues collected by Customs represent an important portion of their total national income. The scope of this topic included the relative dependence on customs revenues of economies, and potential responses to declining revenue collection caused by, for example, the global financial crisis and a general reduction in duty rates. Such responses may include the use of effective tools and other capacity building solutions;