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Customs K9 Unit and Juvenile Justice Team Up to Conduct

As part of the public relations and community engagement efforts, the Customs Drug Detector Dog Unit along with the Division of Juvenile Justice, Bureau of Public Safety joined forces to conduct an outreach program for the 6th to 8th grade students in Ngardmau, Ngerchelong and Melekeok Elementary Schools as part of an awareness series. The Outreach Program was conducted from 6th – 8th September, 2023.

While the Division of Juvenile Justice program aims to educate the students on “anti-Bullying” and promoting good behavior in schools, the Bureau of Customs Drug Detector Dog Unit also had the opportunity to provide the students with an understanding of their role, the importance of staying away from drugs and how we use the K9 dogs as a tool to detect and search for drugs in our fight to protect the border against drugs coming to Palau. While the students really enjoyed watching the dogs search and detect drugs as part of our demonstration, we hope this program will continue to have a positive impact on the students. The outreach program was a success and we plan to deliver more programs this year.

AW Mobilization Seminar

Customs Software to Boost Cross-Border Trade in Palau

European Union Funding for UNCTAD ASYCUDAWorld Customs Management System Roll-Out

Ngerulmud, Palau. 25 August 2022

The Government of Palau has started work under the EU funded IMPACT project that will deliver a new customs management system to help the country increase the pace of customs clearance and boost its ability to engage in international trade. Palau will use ASYCUDAWorld, a customs management system developed by UNCTAD’s Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) Programme, to deliver the latest, cutting edge, customs technology. Processing customs paperwork manually is time-consuming and inefficient. It also requires traders to travel to import and export clearing points to physically present their documents, costing them time and money. A mobilization seminar was held 23-24 August to raise awareness among key stakeholders regarding the need for simplified and streamlined customs procedures, the potential benefits of fully automated customs clearance processes, and the specific supporting role of the UNCTAD ASYCUDAWorld system.

Surangel Whipps Jr., President of Palau, when opening the event said, “I want to thank the UN, the EU, and UNCTAD for their support in making sure that this ASYCUDA system is implemented in Palau. It’s really about partnership and without strong partners like you, we wouldn’t have been able to move this project forward to build a more prosperous and safer Palau”. He added, “I hope this will make it easy for traders to submit their reports. Hopefully this will help the business community, reduce the lines at the customs office and improve our customer service to the people that we serve”. ASYCUDA is UNCTAD’s largest technical assistance programme and currently has software running in over 100 countries, including 41 small island developing states (SIDS). ASYCUDAWorld will enable Palau to optimize customs procedures and boost government revenue by ensuring that all goods are declared and the correct duties collected online. When rolled out, the system will make cross-border trade easier, faster and cheaper for businesses in Palau, and for those wishing to do business with them. ASYCUDAWorld will also help Palau customs to gather reliable and timely trade and fiscal statistics to better support the government with economic planning and evidence-based decision-making.

Dr. Erja Askola, Chargé d ’Affaires of the EU Delegation for the Pacific, said, “The European Union aims to jointly address the challenges that Pacific States and companies face to benefit from accessing regional and international markets. Reducing the time Palau moves goods in and out is one of the many interventions we support in the Pacific to promote regional economic integration. We also welcome more countries of the region to join the European Union-Pacific States Economic Partnership Agreement”.

Palau Minister of Finance, Kaleb Udui Jr., added, “The Ministry is pleased to join over 100 nations in implementing ASYCUDA in line with international standards. This will expand trading opportunities and boost the capacity of the Republic, and will create a more transparent, less costly and more equitable trading environment for importers and exporters of Palau”.

“Customs plays a crucial role in supporting the economic competitiveness of a country. One that ensures that revenues are collected while the community and the environment are protected”, highlighted the UN Resident Coordinator for Micronesia, Jaap Van Heirden. The IMPACT project will support the modernization of customs administration and facilitate trade for Palau regionally and internationally. It will contribute to sustainable and inclusive prosperity in the region, which is an area of focus of the EU strategy for cooperation in the Pacific. The funding for the IMPACT project comes under the EU’s ‘Pacific Regional Integration Support’ (PRISE) Programme, which aims to increase trade between Pacific States’ as well as between themselves and the EU-27 Member States.

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Work on Strategic Planning

Over the past 2 weeks, Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity Officers (CIB) from both management and intermediate levels have been meeting at least three times a week to discuss and work on their strategic plan as an activity organized by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP). According to Director John Tarkong Jr., these sessions of meetings have really focused on developing a strategic plan aimed at fruitful discussions to help identify and analyze issues, existing activities and measures that also involve policy at the Bureau level that we hope will strengthen BCBP to work smarter, be more innovative and more efficient over the next four years. In line with these discussions, Tarkong mentioned that we are also fortunate to receive online technical assistance from the Pacific Immigration Development Community (PIDC) through the advice and expertise of a consultant to help us review our work and point us in the right direction.

A number of challenges were identified to include the COVID-19 Pandemic that affected everyone in Palau and the world and, as a result, this called for greater collaboration between our border, law enforcement and other relevant agencies. Our vision and plan, while still in the making, includes measurable standards and targets and once completed it will help lay out a realistic strategy for reforming our organization over the next four to five years.  While there are indeed significant initiatives that are essential to enable CIB Officers to fulfill our institutional obligations and to become a reliable, trustworthy and an efficient organization, a number of strategic objectives and focus points were formulated. In fact, CIB officers felt that it is very important that we continue to build and invest in our people and technical resources while enhancing border control, infrastructure improvements, strengthen the legal framework, improve travel and trade facilitation, improving revenue and compliance measures as well as improving our overall service delivery. Over the next few weeks, CIB will continue to work and develop the plan. Stay tuned.

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FSM visit – Palau Peer Learning

On Monday, April 10, 2023, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP) welcomed Mr. Andrew Haigh, FSM Tax Administrator Advisor and his team that included four Customs Officers from the FSM Customs. The purpose of their planned visit with Customs was to observe and learn from our good practices in Palau and to engage in peer-to-peer learning with staff and sharing experiences. According to Mr. John Tarkong Jr., Director of the BCBP, he explained that our Bureau has been focused not just on Customs related issues, but also on Immigration and Biosecurity activities at the border. In line with the merger between Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity, a series of reforms will be implemented to include restructuring the Bureau, cross-training of our officers and reforms focused around technology that includes Biometrix, x-ray machines, ASYCUDA-Automation on Customs and Trade / Single Windows System and other technology that will assist our officers on employing an intelligence led team at the border.

Overall, under the merger, our agencies have been focused on strengthening our policies and portfolio. Over the past year, we have been focused on improving policy, compliance, enforcement and other operational functions. While it has been challenging for our Bureau, the collaboration and strengthening of our efforts at the border allows us to focus on streamlining and improving our processes and collaboration with other border and related agencies as well as the public.

In addition, Mr. Haigh was able to attend the Coordinated Border Management Working Group as an observer. As you know, the CBMWG was established by President Surangel Whipps Jr., through an executive order, to mandate our border and other related agencies to come together and focus on border related matters and to streamline and improve management related matters at the border. Director Tarkong mentioned that the proposed Customs Act that was introduced by our President last December is currently pending at OEK (Congress). We’re hoping that OEK will realize the importance of the Customs Act and the role that Customs plays in our growing economy which goes beyond the benefits of compliance, border protection and trade facilitation.

Over the course of their visit, the FSM Customs Officers were able to visit various sections to include our ports, observe our customs operations, processes, and the implementation of the ongoing project involving the ASYCUDA Automation System on Customs & Trade. They were able to sit in while training was conducted by our Customs staff for our airline and shipping agencies on the ASYCUDA system. The automated system will go live in July of this year. They observed meetings and discussions with management and staff involving our operations and ongoing projects. They were able to observe how the PGST is currently being implemented by Customs. Overall, the visit was a positive experience for all of us and this created an opportunity to bring our Officers together especially since they normally don’t have time to interact at all. Such exchange also allowed our officers to enhance and engage in strengthening relations and address issues related to customs revenue collections, trade facilitation, and border protection.