Development of the system of customs experts – the example of China Customs

Abstract

In recent years, the ever-evolving internal and external environment has made the development and professional construction of human resources (HR) crucial to the realisation of Customs’ overall strategic goals. In this context, a customs expert system, is a policy arrangement that has received extensive attention from the members of the World Customs Organization (WCO). Here, the paper systematically reviews the contributions of the WCO and the best practices of its members in customs HR professional development. The paper analyses in detail the three reasons for the introduction of the customs expert system by China Customs and explain its content. The paper also emphasises the management model including methods to identify experts, their tenure and their regular assessment. After analysing the achievements of and problems faced by China Customs regarding the existing expert system, the author proposes the following five suggestions for the future developmenof the expert system: first, to expand the classification of customs experts; second, to learn from other countries’ customs expert systems through extensive international customs cooperation events; third, to conduct in-depth studies of the system’s connection between professional and technical civil servants and customs experts; fourth, to improve the relevant institutional arrangements for ‘expert-type leaders’, and further clarify the setting of expert levels; and lastly, to actively explore the utilisation of expert teams.