research at wco

Research Unit

Office of the Secretary General

WCO Secretariat

R e s e a r c h

a t W C O

O u t l i n e

• Overview of the Research Unit

• Research Unit Activities

• Ongoing Research

• Some Outcomes

Secretary General

Deputy SG

Tariff and Trade Affairs

Directorate

Compliance and

Facilitation Directorate

Capacity Building

Directorate

Office of SG Research Unit

One of the SG’s priorities

- Customs modernization based on knowledge

- Research as an instrument for capacity building

Research Unit

– created in 2009

– 6 officials

– http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/research.aspx

http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/research.aspx

Objective : to produce an empirical knowledge on Customs issues and international

trade regulation and practices

Kinds of research:

i. Analyses (on demand, Customs Environmental Scan, Annual Report),

ii. Academic research and common projects with external researchers

Participation to capacity building projects on innovative questions or methodologies

(with WCO directorates, the World Bank, the UNCTAD or bilateral donors)

Dissemination of results:

i. academic publications and communications

ii. collective books publishing

iii. organization of international conferences

iv. WCO Research Papers Series

v. communications at WCO committees

R e s e a r c h U n i t A c t i v i t i e s

R e s e a r c h d o c u m e n t s

a source of information about Members

and Secretariat activities

disseminated during Council sessions

(first edition 2012)

W C O A n n u a l R e p o r t

Han, C., Nelen, H., and Joo, M. (Forthcoming). Documentary Credit Fraud Against Banks: Analysis of

Korean Cases. Journal of Money Laundering Control.

Cantens, T., (2015). Arriver en « Terre Promise » et s’approprier une technologie de contrôle :

l’installation d’un scanner de conteneurs dans les douanes camerounaises. L’Espace Politique.

Cantens, T., (à paraître). Tax, Fraud, Unstable and Calculation. In James G. Carrier (ed.), Corruption

and Economic Deviance.

Cantens, T., Ireland, R., Raballand, R., (2015). Informality, Customs and International Trade. The

Journal of Borderlands Studies (special issue).

Han, C. and McGuaran, R. (2014). Tracing Trails: Implications of Tax Information Exchange Programs

for Customs Administrations. World Customs Journal, 8(2): 3-14.

Han, C. and Ireland, R. (2014). Performance measurement of the KCS customs selectivity system. Risk

Management, 16(1): 25-43.

Cantens, T., Kaminski, J., G. Raballand, G., Tchapa, T., 2014. Customs, brokers and informal sectors :

a Cameroon case study, World Bank, Policy Research WP, WPS6788.

Cantens, T., 2013. Other People’s Money and Goods : the Relationship between Customs Officers and

Users in some Countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Sociologus Vol. 63, Bureaucrats in Uniform, pp. 37-58.

Han, C. and Ireland, R. (2013). Informal Funds Transfer Systems as a Target of Customs Enforcement.

World Customs Journal, 7(1):3-12.

Cantens, T., 2012. La contractualisation dans les administrations fiscales et ses effets sur la corruption

et les mauvaises

pratiques : le cas des douanes camerounaises. Revue d’Economie du Développement, n°3, pp. 35-66.

Cantens, T., 2012. Is It Possible to Reform a Customs Administration? The Role of the Customs Elite on

the Reform Process in Cameroon. In Alice Amsden, Alisa DiCaprio et James Robinson (eds.) The Role of

Elites in Economic Development.Oxford, Helsinki : Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 281-306.

S o m e P u b l i c a t i o n s s i n c e 2 0 1 2

R e s e a r c h C o o p e r a t i o n

Collectif art-science

sur les frontières

www.antiatlas.net/

ICTD global policy

research network

http://www.ictd.ac/

Centre Norbert Elias

EHESS/CNRS

centre-norbert-

elias.ehess.fr/

CERDI

School of Economics

http://www.cerdi.org/

A n E x a m p l e o f A p p l i e d R e s e a r c h( 2 0 1 0 - 2 0 1 5 )

Development of a specific module for the UNCTAD IT system and implementation in different countries

• Big Data analytics

• Use of Geo-Data and satellite imagery analysis by Customs

• Fragile borders ( borders in violent areas or post-conflict zones)

• The uses of quantification to reform / the mathematization of borders

• Special Economic Zones

• Illicit Financial Flows via Trade Mis-invoicing

O n g o i n g R e s e a r c h

B i g D a t a A n a l y t i c s

• Descriptive analysis

• Identifying Trade Mis-invoicing

• Automated targeting by Decision Tree (Supervised Machine Learning)

• Fraud detection by K-means and KNN (Unsupervised + Supervised Machine Learning)

• Training Customs Data Experts (Korea)

• Community of Customs data experts (WCO cloud computing service)

B i g D a t a A n a l y t i c s

Operation Pandora III

Main highlights of incidents:

→ 3,142 incidents and 33,100 fatalities 2009 – 2017→ 1,881 or 60% of the incidents and 18,998 or 57% of

the fatalities occurred between 2015 and 2017→ Steadily rising incidents within 50km and 15 km of

borders as 49% and 26% of the incidents occurred within these distances

F r a g i l e b o r d e r s ( b o r d e r s i n v i o l e n t a r e a s )

2014 ↑ 488 incidents resulting in ↑ 8,831 fatalities ● Militia and unidentified group join the fight against boko Haram groups. ↑ 404 Nigeria ↑ 81 incidents in Cameroun, ● One incident in Chad ● Two incidents in Niger. Types of attacks – ↑ 209 Battles, ↑ 53 Explosions/Remote ↑ 205 violence against civilians ↑ 80 incidents within at Customs location, ↑ 137 incidents within 15km and ↑ 249 incidents within 50km ● 48 incident in Cameroon was within 15km of Nigeria’s Borders Of the incidents within 15Km of Customs location, ↑ 97 occurred at Customs offices linked to Borno, while ↓ 40 were linked to Adamawa

● Cameroon and Niger Government forces join in the fight.

↑ Total of 238 transactions, ↑ Valued at US $ 5 million through Borno office accounts for ↑ 125 transactions valued at ↑ US $ 4.7 million ↓ 1 Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↓ 10 importers involved in the importation of: ↑ Oil seeds – 41 transactions valued at US $ 2.4 million from Chad; ↓ Residuals from food industries – 19 transactions from Chad, valued at US $ 785,293 from Chad; ↓ Plastics – 14 transactions from Chad, valued at US $ 589,951. Raw hides and skins ↔ 6 transactions from Chad, valued at US $ 280,327 ↑Vehicles – 41 transactions valued at US $ 102, 301 from the USA Adamawa office accounts for ↑ 113 transactions valued at ↑ US $ 295,709 ↑ 3 Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↓ 3 importers involved in the importation of: ↑ Vehicles – 112 transactions valued at US $286,499 from ↑ Japan 85 transactions valued at US $ 220,762, ↑ France 16 transactions valued at US $ 34,631 and Germany 8 transactions valued at US $ 17,834.

↑ Total of 791 Export transactions, ↑ Valued at US $ 35.0 million through Borno office accounts for ↓ 5 transactions valued at ↑ US $ 159,241 ↓ One Agent processed transactions for, ↓ Two exporters involved in exporting -● Gums – 4 transactions valued at US $ 80, 141 to Chad Adamawa office accounts for ↑ 786 transactions valued at ↑ US $ 34.9 million ● One Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↔ 7 exporters involved in exporting, ↑ Footwear – 495 transactions valued at US $ 19.2 million: to Central African Republic 166 of the transactions and US $ 6.79 million of the values, Chad 329 of the transactions and US $ 12.37 million of the values ↑ Plastics – 289 transactions valued at US $ 15.4 million: to Central African Republic 117 of the transactions and US $ 6.2 million of the values, Chad 172 of the transactions and US $ 9.2 million of the values

2015 ↑ 615 incidents resulting in ↑ 11,534 fatalities ↑ 445 Nigeria ↑ 96 incidents in Cameroun, ↑ 26 incidents in Chad and ↑ 48 incidents in Niger. Types of attacks – ↑ 279 Battles, ↑ 134 Explosions/Remote ↓ 182 violence against civilians ↑ 104 incidents within at Customs location, ↑ 160 incidents within 15km and ↑ 318 incidents within 50km Of the incidents within 15Km of Customs location, ↑ 139 occurred at Customs offices linked to Borno, while ↓ 21 were linked to Adamawa

● Cameroonian military imposes 50km restricted “red zone” along Nigeria-Cameroon borders in the North east

↑ Total of 261 transactions, ↓ Valued at US $ 1.38 million through Borno office accounts for ↓ 79 transactions valued at ↓ US $ 1 million ↑ 3 Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↓ 7 importers involved in the importation of: ↓ Plastics – 3 transactions valued at US $ 121,621 ↑ Raw hides and skins – 25 transactions valued at US $ 746,247 -↑Vehicles – 50 transactions valued at US $ 67, 241 from United States of America Adamawa office accounts for ↑ 183 transactions valued at ↑ US $ 375,998 ↔ 3 Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↔ 3 importers involved in the importation of: ● Cereals – 71 transactions valued at US $ 200,945 from Thailand. Vehicles ↔ 112 transactions valued at ↓ US $175,052 from ↓ Japan 63 transactions valued at US $ 96,350, ↔ France 16 transactions valued at ↓ US $ 22,431 and ↑ Germany 21 transactions valued at US $ 31,222.

↓ Total of 340 Export transactions, ↓ Valued at US $ 15.1 million through Adamawa office all transactions, and values ↑ Four Customs Agent processed transactions for, ↔ 7 exporters involved in exporting, ↓ Footwear – 201 transactions valued at US $ 7.32 million: to Central African Republic 72 of the transactions and US $ 2.73 million of the values, Chad 129 of the transactions and US $ 4.6 million of the values ↓ Plastics – 137 transactions valued at US $ 7.1 million: to Central African Republic 59 of the transactions and US $ 3 million of the value, Chad 129 of the transactions and US $ 4.1 million of the values

Transactions in Oil seeds and residuals from food industries disappear from Borno

Timeline analysis

Import Transactions

Dependent Variable OLS Fixed Effects Fixed Effects with Entity and Time

Incidents within 15km -0.53*** -0.8646*** -0.8646***

Fatalities 0.4031

Imports through other offices -0.0001 -0.00003

Log of Import value


Incidents within 15km -0.08*** -0.0097 -0.1677***

Fatalities 0.165

Imports through other offices 0.0001*** -0.00003

Export Transactions



Fatalities 0.29*** 0.27*** 0.23***

Exports through other offices -0.0004 0.00004

Log of Export Value



Fatalities 0.94*** 1.00*** 0.89***

Imports through other offices

→ Incidents occurring within 15 km significantly affects trade

# every strike is approximately proportionate to a reduction in trade transactions and 16% reduction in import value.

→ The variables fatalities and imports through other Customs offices do not impact on trade through the Area, which may be due to high transactions of undocumented goods

→ Positive relationship between fatalities and exports highlights the variation between the scale of Customs data and ACLED, and the need for more detailed data collection by customs.

Time and entity fixed effects regression model:

Customs operations~Incidents within 15Km + resulting

fatalities + Customs operations in other offices + Time + Office

+ Error Term

Where

P I C A R D C o n f e r e n c e

Thank you for your attention

research at wco

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