With the “Compendium 2019 – Case Studies”, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) celebrates 30 years of success in the implementation of the ASYCUDA customs system, showing how such a platform has helped over 100 countries to collect more customs duties, speed up trade and become more open for business.
ASYCUDA, in full “Automated System for Customs Data”, is an IT customs management system developed by UNCTAD to automate the operations of customs administrations. The system was adopted in 1981, initially, only for compiling foreign trade statistics. Since then, it has gone through three major upgrades, where new functions have been added (allowing Customs to handle all customs clearance-related processes), and in order to take advantage of innovation in computer hardware, programming language and software technology, so to meet the challenges of the growing volume and complexity of international trade.
ASYCUDA is today conceived as a modular platform, where different components (modules) can be added on at any time to suit the needs of the countries adopting the system. Such add-on modules can cover customs functions such as risk management, transit operations or other procedures allowing a suspension of customs duties or taxes, new security standards, etc., depending on national priorities.
customs declarations, manifests and other documents required for the purposes of customs operations.
The third version (Asycuda ++), based on a client-server architecture, added new customs modules and functionalities, such as direct trader input, risk management, transit monitoring, and submissions of declarations by customs brokers via the Internet. This version is still used today by many developing countries in the world.
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