President receives WCO Secretary-General Kunio Mikuriya

President Serzh Sargsyan today received the Secretary-General of the World Customs Organization (WCO) Kunio Mikuriya.

Welcoming the guest, the Armenian President said that Mr. Mikuriya’s visit to Armenia bore testimony to the fact that the organization was highly committed and paid special attention to the reforms implemented in member countries. Serzh Sargsyan expressed the hope that during his visit, Kunio Mikuriya will manage to record and assess the effectiveness and achievements of the reforms that have been carried out in Armenia in the last 5 years with the help of the WCO. The President underlined that Armenia highly appreciates its many years’ collaboration with the WCO and thanked the organization for keenly supporting our country in responding to the challenges of the given sector.

Kunio Mikuriya expressed satisfaction with the fact that in terms of all types of customs reforms, Armenia has carried out extensive work, and its progress is obvious. He especially underscored the works that have been successfully accomplished, inter alia, in the areas of the use of high technologies in customs procedures, modernization of border customs checkpoints, human resource management and improvement of legislation. In Kunio Mikuriya’s opinion, these reforms have brought perceptible results and have been highly assessed in his report.

He noted that he was also aware of the positive change in the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2014” rankings which has been made partly owing to the works carried out by Armenia in the spheres of tax and customs administration.

The RA President and the WCO Secretary-General also discussed the upcoming programs designed to deal with the reforms and challenges facing the RA Customs Service, in that context attaching great weight to customs officer-businessman cooperation, continued efforts aimed at improving the business climate and the competitiveness of Armenia’s economy.