The World Customs Organisation (WCO) on 9 January hosted a one-day workshop on data analytics. This event, the first of its kind, was organised to explore and discuss the potential use of data analytics in customs.
According to the WCO the aim of the workshop – the first of its kind - was to discuss ways in which customs could take greater advantage of the use of data analytics in customs as an extremely powerful tool for improving the way customs administrations work, at both the operational and strategic levels. There is evidence that the massive amount of data generated by customs is currently under-used. Enhancing customs’ ability to perform increasingly sophisticated analytics using the available data will become even more crucial in all future policy-making processes.
The workshop participants included representatives from academia and international organisations, as well as practitioners from customs administrations. According to the WCO the discussions and presentations focused on customs and trade data, as well as data analysis methods that could be used to help customs gain a better understanding of themselves and the work they do, thus shaping the way towards more efficient and effective customs administrations.
At the end of the workshop participants agreed that the data provided by some of the customs administrations would be used to produce research papers. It would also be collated and summarised in a book for the customs community.
