Last week Thursday, September 24, at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel, the Jamaica Customs Agency (JCA) celebrated 25 years of partnership with the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) by launching Customs 4.0 immediately after its four-day offsite retreat.

Newly appointed Commissioner of Customs Kirk Benjamin, in a speech entitled “25 years of Customs and Commerce Partnership: Reporting on Progress, Partnership and Future” reported on his agency’s progress, spoke honestly about the cost and value of partnership, but looked ahead to how to make Customs 4.0 a reality.

He argued that Custom’s 25 years of continuous engagement with the JCC is more than an anniversary, but it covers the change from paper-based trade to today’s modern risk-managed digital clearance.

From paper to digitisation

Modern Customs systems like the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) — a computerised management system which supports electronic manifests, declarations, and payments across ports and stations — and Jamaica Single Window for Trade (JSWIFT), which brings permits, licences, and approvals into one access point, allow customers to complete processes once and “not five times”.

Smarter controls for risk management, selection, and non-intrusive inspection enable intelligence-led examinations that allow low-risk trade to move more quickly. The Authorized Economic Operator programme, he noted, has been extended from importers to exporters.

He reported that the JCA achieved the prestigious ISO 9001:2015 certification in April 2023, with recertification this year, sustained revenue collection, and improved clearance times, all while aligning with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement and Revised Kyoto Convention.

However, he advised there is plenty of unfinished work, and he had “heard the cry” of his stakeholders regarding system slowness that can immobilise traders’ money, inconsistent rulings, long-awaited refunds, and service still struggling to reach the vision that, “The trader is a client, not a suspect.”

The power of partnership

He commended the JCA’s partnership approach, whereby, “For 25 years, Customs and the business community have met, disagreed at times, but never left the room. The achievement we celebrate is not merely a system or statute, it is a relationship.” As an aside, the original partnership initiative was, of course, spearheaded by former JCC director, the late, great Lazarus Bucknor.

In a speech that could be a best practice example of how the public and private sectors should partner, he observed that partnership is not the absence of tension, but it is the choice to manage competing priorities openly and together. He thanked the JCC for “twenty-five years of engagement that have made the Jamaica Customs Agency better at its job”.

For 25 years, he said, the chamber has provided hard feedback through consultation, brought specific cases that could be fixed, helped shape systems, and promoted compliance while challenging policy. Importantly, he observed, the distinction between fighting a rule and breaking it is the mark of a mature private sector. In summary, Customs must facilitate trade, protect the border, and collect revenue, while businesses need speed, cost control, and predictability.

In particular, Benjamin said the JCA has learnt that trade facilitation spans the entire chain — shipping lines, terminals, brokers, permit agencies, and hauliers — and a system designed without its users is a system designed twice. Enforcement, he noted, must be fair and legitimate so the compliant majority can trust that controls are directed at the non-compliant minority.

Customs 4.0

The next quarter-century of partnership, the industry’s fourth revolution or Customs 4.0, will be driven by data, artificial intelligence (AI), and connected systems.

This evolution will need to move beyond digitising old paper processes and redesigning them around the customer, risk, and intelligence as part of his three-year mission to make the JCA one of the most business-friendly customs agencies while maintaining strong revenue, border security, and compliance outcomes.

This vision is summarised as simplicity, speed, predictability, transparency, partnership, and smart enforcement. More explicitly, it is to be the trusted, predictable, efficient, and business-friendly border regulator through which legitimate trade moves quickly, compliance is simple, decisions are transparent, and enforcement is risk-based.

Business-friendly does not mean less regulation, but easier compliance, faster legitimate trade, predictable decisions, accessible information, and intelligence-led enforcement. Intelligence-driven means release, inspection, enforcement, and resource deployment will increasingly rely on integrated data, risk intelligence, and compliance history rather than routine intervention.

Benjamin outlined what he called the four new realities driving the need for change: small packages have replaced the pallet; data is the new border; the border is an interoperability challenge; and resilience is a trade issue, which we will explain further in a future article.

Nevertheless, The JCA’s greatest long-term investment will be in its officers, through training, professionalisation, career pathways, and particularly “uncompromising integrity”, arguing that while the agency will discipline its own, the private sector needs to do the same.

The logistics hub prize

Critically, Benjamin observed that while Jamaica’s location on a major shipping lane is an advantage, geography alone does not create a logistics hub. Efficiency, predictability, and trust must be built together, as occurred 25 years ago when two institutions with different mandates chose to have annual joint events and work through disagreement in the national interest in a partnership that has endured changes of Government, commissioners, and chamber presidents.

Finally, he made a four-pronged commitment relevant to the entire public sector: “Customs would consult before we implement, publish what we promise, measure what we publish, and report back to you in this room.”

Future trade regulations and policies should focus on removing unnecessary requirements, simplifying, digitising, assistance from AI, assessing risk, scanning first, targeting intervention, recording and accounting, releasing faster, measuring, and improving. This is a future that neither Customs nor commerce can build alone.

The other two critically important presentations, which we will cover in future articles, included that of Andre Williams, chief information officer responsible for Customs modern information strategy of consultative co-design, and the globally eminent Patricia Francis, the chair of Jamaica’s Trade Facilitation Group, who for decades has tirelessly championed Jamaica’s logistics hub strategy.

More anon.

Keith Collister