"Co-ordinated border management is the future in responding to the needs of international trade in the 21st Century." So concluded World Customs Organisation Secretary General Kunio Mukuriya at the end of a two day forum on the subject in Brussels at the end of June.
Co-ordinated Border Management (CBM) is the latest buzz phrase in international trade. The Global Facilitation Partnership (GFP) for Transportation and Trade defines it as the "organisation and supervision of border agency activities to meet the common challenge of facilitating the movement of legitimate people and goods while maintaining secure borders and meeting national legal requirements."
At its heart, it is about how the various border agencies can and should work together to clear movements of legitimate goods and people - the type of effective border agency co-ordination for which SITPRO has been pressing for many years.
The WCO forum heard from many Customs authorities with different models for how CBM has been or is being achieved in their countries. They range from collaboration and co-ordination approaches (such as the co-ordination committee in New Zealand) to integration (such the single border agency adopted in Canada and partly by the US). The establishment of the UK Border Agency puts the UK on a course towards integrated border management (or ‘IBM’ - not to be confused with the company of that name).
The CBM debate is likely to be around for some time, much as the single window has dominated the reform agenda over the last ten years. Clearly a key driver is more effective border management in the face of public expenditure pressures and the need for operational efficiencies. However, importantly it is also a facilitating concept, and so should be welcomed by business, as it should lead to joined up clearance, including inspections, and better shared use of data, helping to promote single window systems around the world.
Conference papers can be obtained from http://www.wcoomd.org/event_iafcbm.htm.
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 69, Summer 2009
