International Customs Day is celebrated around the world to mark the anniversary of the establishment of World Customs Organisation 56 years ago with the mission to facilitate trade and travel. The theme of this year's celebration is "Knowledge a Catalyst for Customs Excellence".
This theme truly reflects the spirit of our age that we are living in world where knowledge has become the ultimate deciding factor between the developed nation and an impoverished country. Thus we can say that from the knowledge economy to knowledge worker, everything is quantified and defined in the prism of knowledge.
For Customs, knowledge is the key without which we cannot perform our functions of an effective organisation. We shall remain relevant only if we try to keep pace with the ever changing International environment. Customs plays an essential role to ensure that cross border movement of goods complies with International agreements and require to have information and knowledge on how to recognise and respond to challenges and risks. It deems apt that an organisation like Customs should continuously upgrade its knowledge in order to curb the negative factors and give a clear insight to the work force to new situations and challenges.
Customs is such an organisation which can neither be in a state of inertia nor can it perform its function in isolation. Thus one priority rather to say the high priority should be to equip ourselves with latest knowledge and techniques for carrying out our responsibilities and to fulfil our vision, mission and objectives. Without the knowledge of latest International best practices and new business and management techniques, we will not be able to fulfil our responsibilities. It is, therefore, imperative that we should acquire knowledge of all those areas which are in any way related to our functions.
The recent years have witnessed the proliferation of new multilateral and regional trading rules. Our enforcement side requires sophisticated methods to face the challenges and this is possible only when different modes and services are reinforced. Knowledge's aim should be to spread the concept of Customs Business and this would surely act as a catalyst and would enable employees to make effective and fast decisions based on documented information which would have a positive output for the benefit of economic growth. Knowledge can be achieved through on the job discussions, internship, professional training and monitoring programmes.
History shows and it is an admitted fact that trade plays a major role in the progress of a country. The GDP growth is much faster in those countries where the trade has a bigger share in the economy. China is one such example. The balance of economic power is shifting now to our part of the world therefore, it is important that we should be proactive and prepare ourselves for new challenges.
It is essential to emphasis that the coming period of change should prompt all stakeholders to work more closely for speedy, transparent, effective, efficient and fair procedures and the knowledge should be put into practice as it is essence of progress.