Interview with Ms. Susana Wong, CBRA and HEC University of Lausanne
Hola Susana! Can you please tell a bit about yourself: who you are and what you do?
Hola Juha! Thank you for inviting me to this interview. Before working full time for CBRA, I worked in the University of Costa Rica as the director of the Customs Administration and Foreign Trade Bachelor´s Program and as a lecturer in the areas of WTO ́s Agreement, Regional Trade agreements, among other topics. While working at the University, my colleagues and I applied and obtained a USAID Grant for the development of a Central American web and mobile platform that aimed to reduce cost and time of road transportation in the region – a platform which also included the creation of logistics indicators that measured the efficiency of customs border posts in Central America. From 2014 to 2017 I was the manager of such an interesting project!
Before joining the University of Costa Rica and the CBRA, I was a Free Trade Agreement negotiator in the areas of rules of origin, customs procedures and trade facilitation at the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica. For this job, I had to work closely with the Costa Rican Customs Administration in order to negotiate the chapter of customs procedures of the FTAs, topic such as advance rulings, expedited clearance, and publications, among others, were discussed. I also worked closely with the Costa Rican mission at the World Trade Organization while negotiating the WTO ́s trade facilitation text. I reviewed the text, gave suggestions and discussed it with the Customs authorities, Costa Rican National Single Windows, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Agriculture.
After the Ministry, I decided to move to a private consulting company where I advised enterprises and persons interested to import or export goods around the world. My job was to help them comply with the applicable regulations, most of the cases being related to the usage of the certificate of origin, the interpretation of rules of origin across the FTAs, the compliance of customs procedures necessary to import/export goods, as well as the compliance with import and export licensing requirements.
You started active work with CBRA already in 2015, right after the PICARD2015 Conference in Baku, if I recall correctly … What have been the most interesting projects and tasks you have worked with us during the past 24 months?
I have been involved in many interesting projects with CBRA! I recall working on a study mandated by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in which the CBRA team presented many case studies and best practices for the implementation of international and national border agency cooperation as well as provided recommendations on how to improve border agency cooperation among the OIC member states for facilitating trade. I also worked on the Authorized Economic Operator Benefit Surveys that aims to detail the customs benefits available and implemented in AEOs across the globe; for this project, I went to Cancun for the WCO third Global AEO meeting in 2016 to collect the survey replies. Additionally, I participated in the project related to the comparative analysis between Vietnam, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Russia regarding the negative impacts of trafficking and illicit trade; this study was presented during the 11th PICARD Conference 2016, in Manila, the Philippines. Also, under the WP19 CORE Education and Training material from FP7-CORE, I have been developing short courses related to Trade Facilitation, INCOTERMs and the role of governments and the World Trade Organization on the Supply Chain; these courses will be made available on CANVAS tool.
Now you just moved to Lausanne, initially with a 1-year Swiss Excellence Grant, and hopefully soon a full PhD-program entry at the University of Lausanne, HEC Business School, Professor Ari-Pekka Hameri as the lead thesis supervisor… How did the first weeks go in der Schweiz?
It has been very intense! There are so many new projects and I am very excited to be part of them. Two weeks ago, we had the kick-off meeting for the PRECISE project, where I met all the team members of this project and started to discuss the next steps and roles for each one of us. I am very impressed with the quality of professional integrating the PRECISE team, therefore, I am very happy to work with all of them during the next 18 months.
In this first month, I also got to meet Tom Butterly in Geneva with whom we have been working during the past three months on the development of the business model for the ePhyto Solution, provided by the International Plant Protection Convention Secretariat at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. I am confident that we will finish this project successfully and present the results to the IPPC on December 2017. For more information about the ePhyto Solution, see our recent Blog on this topic!
Also, last week, Toni Männistö and I went to UNECE to define the next steps for the Assessment of regulatory and procedural measures in trade – first in Georgia and later in Armenia. I wish good luck to Toni who will be in Georgia sometime during October, conducting very intense interviews with Customs Authorities, other border agency institutions, importing/exporting companies, among other key actors.
Having carried out such tasks with CBRA during this month, I am sure that I will not become bored while staying in Switzerland.
I am personally now at the PICARD2017 Conference in Hammamet, Tunisia – would you have research related greetings to send to the conference participants?
I am sad that I was not able to attend to the PICARD2017 conference, but I can´t leave Switzerland until my residence permit is accepted (let’s not mess with Swiss rules!)
As part of the PICARD Advisory Group, I would first like to invite all the Universities and institutions around the world which teach customs and trade related matters to certify their corresponding program under the WCO´s PICARD Professional Standards (http://www.wcoomd.org).
Furthermore, this year PICARD topics are related Trade Facilitation, Security matters, Data Analysis and Customs-Tax Cooperation. CBRA has been actively researching particularly under the first two topics. I encourage you all to follow CBRA´s work and to contact us if you would like us to collaborate with your institutions in Supply Chain Security and Trade Facilitation research!
Thanks a lot Susana for this interesting interview – and welcome again to stay in Switzerland, hopefully for several years to come!
CBRA Interview on 28.9.2017 by Dr. Juha Hintsa
