JCD Director General Addresses Expectations and Challenges Facing Jordan Customs
24-Mar-2013
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Special to ag-IP-news Agency
AMMAN - Jordan Customs Department (JCD) Director General Ghaleb Sarayreh lectured on "Jordan Customs and the WTO" at Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Knowledge Forum (TAG-Forum) in which he addressed the expectations and challenges facing the Department and highlighted the achievements made in the past two years.
The lecture, organized by the Policy Development Forum (PDF) and moderated by HE Dr. Mohammad Abu Hammour, was attended by a host of high profile officials in the presence of HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh along with representatives of government and non-government entitles in the Kingdom.
Sarayreh stressed at the beginning of his lecture on the mission of the Customs Department which seeks to provide distinct custom services that keep pace with rapid global developments, and meet the requirements of comprehensive sustainable development by seeking a balance between customs controls and facilitation of trade, and to continue building the institutional capacities of the customs.
"The Customs’ work has been upgraded in all countries from levying charges and taxes to protecting national economic interests (supporting local industry), and to the protection of society and the environment (from smuggling drugs, weapons and other harmful substances), and then to achieving economic development (trade facilitation), to playing a greater security role against threats to all of supply chain," he added.
While concerning the challenges facing the Department, Sarayreh said that the Customs is one of the departments that changes tasks constantly due to the nature of the change in international and regional circumstances, and perhaps the most significant of those are the security challenges generated by the waves of international terrorism, which introduced the Customs Department to new regulations that were unknown, such as: Combating smuggling weapons in all its forms (conventional, chemical dual-use, nuclear among others), combating money laundering and serious cross-border smuggling of people.
Sarayreh stressed that Jordan Customs Department earlier realized that its role is no longer limited to the collection of customs duties, but extends to all aspects of economic and social life in addition to economic and social and national security.
According to Sarayreh, the size of revenues in 2012 amounted to JD 1509.7 million compared to JD1344 million in 2011.
Sarayreh revealed that Jordan’s ranking according to the International competitiveness has advanced to 46 amongst 144 countries up from the 55 ranking amongst 142 countries in 2012 and 2011 respectively.
Sarayreh concluded by saying: "Jordan Customs has become the focus of attention from the customs in the region and beyond and now we host now many delegations of these countries who are interested in getting more from our pioneering experience in the field of technology and other developments. As requested by many customs administrations in these countries, we provided them with a number of our experts, systems and programs to disseminate the Jordanian experience.”