“Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Customs Management”
The INCU Baku Regional Office jointly with the Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan organized the 2nd INCU International Student Conference with the theme “Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Customs Management”, which was held from 3 to 7 July 2017 in Gusar, Azerbaijan.
Conference Summary
One of the aims of the conference was to provide a platform for sharing research findings, exchanging experiences and developing professional networks and collaborative relationships among the participants including teaching, training and conducting scientific research in the field of Customs.
More than 150 delegates from over 30 countries and representatives of four international organisations attended the conference including two Nobel Prize Laureattes in Economics.
The conference included 6 plenary sessions with some 60 presentations delivered over a 3-day period on a range of topics including:
- Role of customs management in trade facilitation
- International practice in customs legislation modernization
- Best practices in customs
- Digital Customs/e-Customs, e-trade and customs data analysis
- Knowledge-based customs education (skills and competencies, etc)
- Customs to Business partnership.
Chairman of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel-General Professor Aydin Aliyev, President of the International Network of Customs Universities, Professor David Widdowson, Director-General of Uruguay National Customs Directorate, Enrique Cannon, and Georgian Customs Director-General, Vladimir Hundadze delivered opening speeches.
Professor Aydin Aliyev noted that ensuring the independence and security during the globalization period we live in is one of the most important missions. He said that “The Customs Service is one of the main attributes of the independence of each State,” adding that today the Customs Service of Azerbaijan assures the country’s economic security, fiscal policy implementation, prevention of smuggling, plays an important role in facilitating international trade.
The Chairman of the State Customs Committee also pointed out that the Customs Service of Azerbaijan attaches special importance to strengthening cooperation in the field of customs, modernization and improvement of the professionalism of the personnel, and this conference will contribute to the achievement of this goal. Saying that the conference is intended for students studying economics and customs, Professor Aliyev vision is to create unity between Customs and science, and to increase knowledge and experience of young researchers and students.
Enrique Cannon, Director-General of Uruguay National Customs Directorate, said the conference was dedicated to a very important topic such as urgent issues and challenges in customs administrations and he was pleased with it. Mr Cannon also pointed out that customs will continue to play a special role in future of international trade.
In turn, Director-General of Georgian Customs, Mr Vladimir Khodzadze expressed his gratitude for the invitation to the conference and wished it success. He briefly spoke about the situation of international trade , the reforms to be carried out in the customs bodies and the work need to be done to fully respond to the challenges of the modern economy.
The President of INCU, Professor David Widdowson, also expressed his gratitude to the Azerbaijan Customs Academy and Azerbaijan Customs for organising the conference. Professor Widdowson said that INCU International Student Conferences, which have been initiated by the Azerbaijan Customs, have already played an important role in raising the academic standing of the Customs profession.
An honorary guest and a keynote speaker of the conference was Professor Edward Prescott of Arizona State University, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics. Professor Prescott delivered a lecture on the topic “The Current State of the US Economy”. During the discussion, Professor Prescott made positive remarks on the reforms in Azerbaijan’s economy, the country’s economic potential and its future prospects. He noted that a successful policy has been pursued in the recent years to diversify the economy of Azerbaijan and to develop the potential of the non-oil sector, especially in the field of agriculture.
Another honorary guest and keynote speaker, Professor of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Nobel Prize Laureate Christopher Pissarides, delivered a lecture on “Robots and Action in Artificial Intelligence”. Referring to the threat of artificial intelligence (AI), namely the threat of resulting people’s unemployment and impact of AI onhuman labor, Prof. Pissarides talked about the future of the labour market. He also noted ways to achieve sustainable economic growth in the world are unequivocally implemented by high technology, which in turn creates certain problems in the labor market. Christopher Pissarides emphasized that services to increase productivity should be more efficient leading to cost reduction and product cost optimisation. Comparing the effects of technology on gross domestic product of a number of countries, Prof. Pissarides also pointed out that technology was not applied at the same level in different sectors of the economy of these countries.
The Official Closing of the 2nd INCU International Student Conference was held on 7 July 2017. Head of INCU Secretariat, Dr Mikhail Kashubsky and Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, Colonel-General Prof. Aydin Aliyev both expressed gratitude to participants and acknowledged success of the INCU International Student Conference and its significant benefits to younger generation of customs researchers and professionals, as well as it’s important role in strengthening international customs cooperation and capacity building.
In addition to working sessions, the conference also included visitings to Guba Genocide Memorial Complex, the WCO Regional Dog Training Center and WCO Europe Regional Office for Capacity Building in Baku and a city tour of Baku.
The conference was attended by representatives from Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation Senegal, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, the United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. A representative of the World Customs Organization’s Capacity Building Directorate also participated in the conference.
Conference Documents
- Conference Program: English Azerbaijani Russian
- Conference Proceedings (Theses of Reports): English+Russian
Conference Presentations
| TITLE | SPEAKER(S) | |
| Honorary Speech: The Current State of US Economy | Prof. Edward Prescott | ENG |
| Session 1: Role of Customs Management in Trade | ||
| “International aspects of oil and gas projects of Azerbaijan” | Bakhtiyar Aslanbeyli | ENG |
| “Contemporary issues and challenges in customs management” | Prof. David Widdowson | |
| “Customs modernization and the evolving role of customs in border & trade security” | Prof. Samuel Carbonel Bautista | ENG |
| “Study on the improvement of Shanghai international trade ‘Single Window’: From the perspective of logistics information quality in enterprise customs clearance” | Xifan Yang and Xu Jiao | |
| “Emerging and evolving customs challenges” | Colby John Isaac Tunick and Aishwaryaa Dev | |
| “Market penetration and associated risks in the Agricultural Machinery Business” | Elmir Brkic, Isabella Walter and Andrea Asanger | ENG |
| “The role of Customs in facilitating trade – electronic customs (digital customs, electronic business and analysis customs data)” | Esmaeil Allahdadi | |
| “AEO in EU Customs regulations as the trade facilitation” | Jan Lukasz Szczepkowski | ENG |
| “Role of Customs management in trade facilitation” | Tran Phu Qui | ENG |
| Session 2: Best Practices in Customs | ||
| “Energy Geopolitics” | Prof. Brenda Shaffer | ENG |
| “Improvement of Customs declaration procedures in the framework of the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union” | Olga Shishkina | RUS |
| “Key issues and challenges in Cambodia Customs” | Tre Noey | ENG |
| “Customs examination of cultural values in the Republic of Belarus” | Ihar Sadovski | RUS |
| “Trade Relations between the United States and China” | Christina Tran | ENG |
| “Excise controls made together with the Mobile Laboratory of the Expert Institute of the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary” | Zoltan Gyorgy Kiraly | ENG |
| “The control of movement of weapons and ammunity across the border: the experience of Ukraine” | Liudmyla Lisnycha | ENG |
| “The authorized guns at the National Tax and Customs Administration and its predecessors” | Dorina Gaspar | ENG |
| “Experience of the European Union on control and adjustment of customs value Experience of the European Union on control and adjustment of customs value” | Svetlana Kudriavtceva | |
| “Activity of the AEO in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union” | Daria Tanchik | RUS |
| “Issues and Challenges” | Nguyen Duc Hanh Nguyen | ENG |
| Honorary Speech “Work in the Age of Robots and Artificial Intelligence” | Prof. Sir Christopher A. Pissarides | ENG |
| “Challenges and risk management in customs operation” | Nghiem Thi Tu | ENG |
| “Comparative analysis of management system of Customs authorities in the states of the Eurasian Economic Union” | Juliia Demianova | ENG |
| “Mechanism of attracting investments for the development of Customs infrastructure” | Vitalii Razzhyvin | ENG |
| “The place of supply of the Value Added Tax and its changes concerning the Hungarian accession to the European Union” | Sandor Pethe | ENG |
| Session 3: Customs to Business Partnership | ||
| “Authorized Economic Operator as a form of partnership between Customs and business in Ukraine” | Vira Nemchenko | ENG |
| “Interpreting the Customs-Business cooperation of AEO system of China Customs from Certification Standards” | Zhao Chunjun | ENG |
| “The role of GVCs in the contemporary Customs to Business developments” | Marija Nikolikj | ENG |
| “Cooperation of Customs administrations with business community” | Miraziz Mirakhatov | RUS |
| “Cooperation between Customs administration and business community in commodity trade facilitation. The best practices in Poland” | Waclaw Jan Klocek | ENG |
| “Modern technologies of Customs and business partnership” | Elizaveta Leonteva | RUS |
| “Investigating the impact of the establishment of cross-border trade Single-Window on the performance of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration” | Fathollah Hassanlouei | |
| Session 4: International Practice in Customs Legislation Modernization | ||
| “Management of Customs compliance at companies related to international trade in goods” | Prof. Wieslaw Czyzowicz | ENG |
| “Organization of Customs control as a priority method of preventing smuggling goods through the customs border” | Prof. Sergei Chizhikov and Dr. Boris Kabylinskii | ENG |
| “Reforms of the Ukraine Customs system in the context of european integration processes” | Prof. Yevgeni Garmash | |
| “Customs compliance and economic and legal consequences related to trade in counterfeit goods” | Milena Borkowska | ENG |
| “Genesis of the Customs law in the system of EEU” | Kazanskaya Anastasia | ENG |
| “Augmented reality glasses for international service business” | Prof. Yasel Jose Costa Salas and Pauline Schrott | |
| “Current problems for Customs valuation of post consignments to European Union” | Aneta Maria Kawala | ENG |
| “Improvement of the Customs Service of the Republic of Belarus in accordance with the requirements of time” | Tatsiana Balashova | |
| Session 5: Digital Customs/E-Customs, E-trade and Customs Data Analysis | ||
| “Network of Everything: Future challenges in Customsmanagement” | Akshay Pottathil | |
| “Turkish experiences and projections in use for digitalization of transit systems” | Anil Evmez | ENG |
| “E-trade in the Republic of Macedonia” | Ana Mihajlova | ENG |
| “The role of electronic Customs in facilitating the Customs affairs process” | Yousef Sharifpour | ENG |
| “Paperless trade in Azerbaijan: recent developments ” | Anar Suleymanov | ENG |
| “E-commerce Customs regulation: International experience and prospects of its implementation in Ukraine” | Viktoriia Ahapova | ENG |
| “Practice of application of preliminary information exchange systems in the framework of the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union ” | Maksim Pashchenko | RUS |
| “Electronic Customs in the Republic of Macedonia” | Kristina Nikolovska | ENG |
| “Information technologies of Customs transit procedure” | Irina Petrova | |
| “E-commerce and intellectual property violation” | Aleksandar Parishev | ENG |
| Session 6: Knowledge-based Customs Education (Skills and Competencies, etc) | ||
| “INCU’s Role in international Customs education, research and capacity building” | Dr. Mikhail Kashubsky | ENG |
| “Innovative approaches to the training of staff in the Customs sphere” | Dr. Valiantsina Ananyeva and Veranika Hliuza | |
| “Bologna Accords and its realization in the Hungarian customs officers’ education” | Dr. Andrea Szabo | ENG |
| “Psychological provision of professional training of Customs officials” | Sviatlana Stupish |
