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Mr. Andrew Farrelly - CEO and Co-Founder of CT Strategies, USA. Photo: Hoang Cuong

What are your expectations to attend the Technology Conference and Exhibition 2023 of the World Customs Organization (WCO) in Hanoi, Vietnam?

CT Strategies specializes in providing technical support and capacity-building services to facilitate trade, logistics solutions, border management, and the development of free trade zones. We always support the World Customs Organization (WCO) in their events. So we attend every tech conference that they have, usually as a speaker. This time I hosted one of the panels on new technologies.

We are consultants working at CT Strategies and we are former customers serving Customs authorities of countries around the world, so we know how customs works.

What we are focusing on in Vietnam is the development of the free trade zones and the effective modern operation of free trade zones. We believe the free trade zones will help to stimulate and grow the economy of Vietnam.

Could you share more about the project on establishing free trade zones in Vietnam that your company is implementing?

We are currently doing a project in Hai Phong City with a private sector company and the People's Committee of Haiphong on establishing a free trade zone.

We are doing a feasibility study for the establishment of a free zone to determine the potential legal framework, to do a market assessment, and to establish standard operating procedures and concepts of operation.

We hope to have that study done by the end of this year. Combined with our work with the central government and the parties, hopefully, we will be able to create a fully operational free zone within a year.

Also, we're hoping to do more work in other provinces like Vung Tau and Quang Tri, Da Nang. We spend a lot of time now talking to different governments and discussing how free zones can be beneficial not just for customs but for the local economy and the economy of Vietnam.

Does your company provide training for the implementation of the free trade zone?

We did some training for officers with our experts for implementation of the free zone because once we establish the free zones in Vietnam, everybody will need to be trained, and customs businesses, the other government agencies need to be trained.

How many countries around the world does your company work with?

We have done work in almost all countries in the world. We focus our work on programs like authorized economic operators and we are currently doing that project in the Balkans we also focus on the adoption of technology and inspection processes and we're currently doing that with Columbia Customs.

Besides, we have helped build AEO programs in Australia Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. And, we continue to do assessments of the deployment of technology we did in Colombia and Panama.

Thus, we try to apply our expertise in the best way possible to understand how the customs user uses technology to advance their mission

All these companies have very smart people, very smart engineers, but sometimes engineers make technology that we can't use at the border. And so the key is finding an organization like CT Strategies to bring together the technology and the person so that they can use technology effectively in operations at the land borders, at the seaports, and at the airports.

What is your assessment of the technology application in the customs professions of Vietnam Customs and can the technology replace humans?

Vietnam Customs has seen phenomenal progress. I think Vietnam Customs is ready to take even more steps to continue to modernize to be a leader not just in the region but around the world in applying new practices and technology in customs operations.

I think technology is necessary but it will not replace humans, however, humans have to embrace technology. The technology continues to evolve and we would be very silly to not take new technology and apply it to the operations that we have.

Free trade agreements fuel growth of seaport operators The volume of cargo going through seaports has been on the increase thanks to free trade agreements ...

It is said that one of the keys to successful and secure trade is velocity, moving cargo very fast. The only way to do that is by applying new technology. Thus if humans really master the technology, we will take advantage of it.

Thank you!