The Customs Administration is a vital organization responsible for overseeing and enforcing customs laws and regulations. As globalization transforms the global supply chain, custom administration agencies are forced to respond to these changes to ensure appropriate compliance and facilitation of international trade and travel when processing cargo and passengers. The report under consideration was located on the official website of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation headquartered in Ankara, Turley. The document entitled Facilitating Trade: Improving Customs Risk Management Systems in the OIC Member States can be found on the following URL. The report was published in 2018, after the 34th ministerial session of the Turkish Ministry of Trade, the country’s customs administration. This paper will discuss the changes introduced by the customs administration of the Republic of Turkey in 2018 and their impact on the target tissue and facilitation.
The increase in foreign economic and commercial relationships established by Turkey led to a stark rise in the movement of goods into and out of the country. Simultaneously, the country experienced a growth in the illegal movement of goods, vehicles, and in some cases, human beings through the nation’s airports (Ministry of Trade, 2018). The illegal activities were highly diverse, further inhibiting customs officials’ ability to apprehend all offenders (Ministry of Trade, 2018). The combined increase in legal and illegal transactions forced the customs administration to implement changes that could address the new workload and determine the levels of risk associated with it. Specifically, the Ministry of Trade (2018) introduced automated risk management systems and utilized big data to streamline legal trade and impede the illicit movement of goods and smuggling. Implementing fully computerized systems and data mining for foreign trade is argued to help address the increase in goods being moved legally and illegally through Turkish airports, allowing customs officials to address all suspicious cases. Thus, the customs change is predicted to ease facilitation and compliance and positively impact trade.
The complete automation and employment of big data will substantially impact trade facilitation by enabling straightforward customs risk management. It can be defined as identifying, evaluating, and mitigating potential risks to an acceptable level to ensure the simplification of international trade (Ministry of Trade, 2018). The report indicates that the increase in legal and illegal trades led to improvements made to the country’s Computerized Customs Activities program, BILGE (Ministry of Trade, 2018). The system gathers data from numerous sources, including customs forms, inspection reports, official regulations, intelligence, disciplinary actions, fines, and penalties of the party moving the goods (Ministry of Trade, 2018). BILGE interprets the collected data at a fast speed, indicating their risk levels and if further action needs to be taken by the customs officials. The document reports that implementing the improved system significantly increased processing time and simplified the movement of legal goods while flagging suspicious activity. The use of big data allows for anomaly detection in the obtained information and better risk identification. It should be noted that the ability of the border management agency to quickly adapt to new challenges is the administration’s strength.
The application of new changes to the handling of goods and extensive automatization of the processing procedures is on par with the standards and recommended customs practices of the Revised Kyoto Convention. The aim of the convention is to support and stimulate trade facilitation and efficient border control (World Customs Organization, 2020). It offers a variety of effective procedures and rules to streamline trade and hinder the illicit movement of commodities. The changes implemented by the Turkish customs administration comply with the Kyoto Convention’s recommendations for the use of risk management and audit-based controls as well as maximum utilization of information technology (World Customs Organization, 2020). It should be noted that the employment of information technology is achieved by Turkey primarily in authentication and risk management aspects of international trade and goods movement. Furthermore, as the revised BILGE system requires all documentation to be submitted electronically, it follows the requirement for “standardization and simplification of goods declaration and supporting documents” (World Customs Organization, 2020, para. 2). Overall, the new modifications realized by the Turkish customs administration comply with several recommendations expressed by the Revised Kyoto Convention.
Although automating risk management and standardizing relevant forms and declarations is a considerable step towards trade facilitation at Turkish borders, other steps recommended by the Revised Kyoto Convention can be implemented. For example, cooperation with third parties should be better established and automated. Although the reviewed report indicates a degree of collaboration and mutual assistance between customs and anti-smuggling data banks, the former would benefit from establishing more information-sharing partnerships. The BILGE system could be further revised and allowed to gather and interpret data on border operations and trade collected from other customs agencies worldwide. The automatization of this process could significantly improve the prevention of illegal trade. Artificial intelligence algorithms can be employed to quickly process the gathered data and note hidden patterns and diverse methods developed by international smugglers. It can be argued that lack of communication between different organizations despite available technology is a definite weakness of the border management agencies. Therefore, it is recommended that the customs administration consider the application of new information technologies to further streamline the risk management process.
In summary, the 2018 report prepared by the Ministry of Trade, the Turkish customs administration, indicates that several new measures were taken to increase trade facilitation and compliance. Thus, the organization made changes to the existing BILGE system to automate the risk management procedures when processing goods and allowed access to big data collected from different sources to detect abnormalities in goods movements and prevent illicit trade. Although these changes were compliant with the Revised Kyoto Convention, further steps, including artificial intelligence and interagency communication, are needed to better address the increased number of legal and illegal movements of goods.
References
Ministry of Trade. (2018). Facilitating trade: Improving customs risk management systems in the OIC member states. Republic of Turkey Ministry of Trade.
World Customs Organization. (2020). The Revised Kyoto Convention.