A New Mindset on Customs Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract

Customs cooperation is vital in today’s era of digitalised supply chains, new technologies and accelerating scale and speed of goods movement. Customs administrations must adapt to the expanding globalised economy and work together to achieve economic development and prosperity. In recent years, the World Customs Organization (WCO) has facilitated significant international platforms for customs cooperation and several bilateral and multilateral agreements have been signed between customs authorities to motivate regional integration and trade facilitation. This paper focuses on customs cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region by examining several case studies on successful cooperation and analysing barriers to cooperation. This article contends that customs administrations must change their mindset from ‘unwilling to share’ to ‘responsibility to provide’ to combat increasing transnational crime threats and protect consumer health and national security.