We are at the halfway point towards fulfilling the vision of western hemispheric free trade by 2005. And yet, there is still much to accomplish. Every one of us gathered here today has an important role to play in the vast project before us. To offer an analogy -- if our political leaders are the architects, the visionaries behind our free trade construct, then we are its engineers -- the implementers of their grand design. It is up to us to provide much of the infrastructure, and to guarantee the foundation's structural integrity. The U.S. Customs Service is fully committed to this task, and to building, in partnership with its fellow customs administrations and business leaders around the world, as uniform and truly "free" a trade area as we could hope to form.

I believe we have come a long way -- a long way from the days when Customs and the private sector might have seemed unlikely partners in this project, and when the twin objectives of facilitation and enforcement might have struck some as a contradiction in terms. What has become clear of late is how closely our priorities are intertwined, and how the very same systems that promote our prosperity are bound tightly to our capacity to protect consumers and the integrity of the global marketplace.

The trade and Customs administrations around the world are teaming together to achieve these mutually important goals. And I enthusiastically support the trend. In the U.S., we've engaged in numerous partnerships with business to enhance the security of international trade. You'll be hearing about some of these key alliances in the panel discussion that immediately follows these comments.

Fermin Cuza of the Mattel Corporation, who is leading that panel, has done an outstanding job working with Customs officials to prevent the exploitation of legitimate commerce by drug traffickers and organized crime. His brainchild, the Business Anti-Smuggling Coalition, or BASC, now includes over 200 members. Under BASC, Customs works with the trade to examine the entire process of manufacturing and shipping merchandise from foreign locations to the United States. We look for any potential weaknesses, or trouble spots that can be exploited by smugglers in the chain, and seek consensus on how these can be improved.

The spirit of cooperation that nourished BASC derived in part from our longstanding Carrier Initiative Program, begun in 1984. This program was created to seek better answers to the recurring security issues between Customs and commercial carriers, answers that go beyond penalties and fines, to include more systemic solutions. Over thirty-eight hundred air, sea, and land carriers now participate in the Carrier Initiative Program. Thanks to the carriers' efforts, we've seen dramatic improvements in security at international sites.

One of our latest projects is the Americas Counter Smuggling Initiative. By adopting an intensified regional focus, this initiative strengthens Customs anti-narcotics security programs with industry and government throughout Central and South America and Mexico. Just as with the Carrier Initiative Program, we look at the commercial transportation process piece by piece, and zero in on vulnerable points.

The urgency behind our efforts is clear. The movement of narcotics by commercial shipments at our borders is by far the single most significant smuggling method for the drug cartels.

These examples of partnership between Customs and industry are vital to our free trade future, and to a market safe from the hazards posed to business and consumers by the illegal drug trade. Equally important, however, is the collaboration between Customs administrations around the world to enhance security measures and harmonize standards across international frontiers.

For the past three years the heads of 34 Customs administrations in the western hemisphere have held their own meetings at the site of this symposium. The Regional Directors General Conference, as it is known, is the single largest gathering of western hemispheric Customs leaders that exists. Our administrations seek to work in parallel with the private sector and other government bodies on developments in the FTAA. We gather annually to exchange information, to assess our efforts at harmonizing standards, and to benchmark our best practices on various trade and enforcement issues.

One of our most important discussions has to do with integrity in Customs operations. The nature of Customs work requires our employees to uphold the highest ethical and professional standards. We must build reliable safeguards against the threat of corruption. U.S. Customs has focused a great deal of attention on this area over the last two years. At the DG meetings, we have sought to share our experiences with our counterparts throughout the western hemisphere, and to raise the importance of the value of integrity training to Customs administrations everywhere.

Risk Management is another crucial front. Customs administrations around the world face a common dilemma: how to manage exploding volumes of trade with static or declining resources. Through risk management, we devise methods to improve our "aim"...that is, our selectivity in examining goods for intensive inspection. We must decide, in a much faster and more efficient way, which shipments merit our attention, and which we can let go, with minimal delay.

The success of our risk management initiatives depends in large part on automation, another vital area of our discussions. A number of Customs administrations, including U.S. Customs, are constructing new automated systems that will revolutionize the way we process trade. One of the most important features of our new network, the Automated Commercial Environment, or ACE, is the advanced technology it will offer us to pinpoint areas of risk within our systems.

While every Customs administration must pursue its own resources for automation independently, and construct those systems according to their unique national commercial and legal needs, we must also keep in mind ways to harmonize on this front too. For example, the data we input into those new systems should have as uniform a look as possible. We can also work to establish electronic interfaces that allow for an easy exchange of information.

While I'm on the topic of automation, let me again stress the importance of the trade's advocacy on this issue. Despite the immense benefits automation will offer us, funding the new systems, particularly in the U.S., is a key sticking point. With so many competing national budget priorities, this one doesn't always come out at the top of the heap. But the precarious state of our current automated system requires that this situation change, and with your help, we keep new automation at the forefront of America's infrastructure needs, where it belongs.

Another issue under discussion by Customs administrations is our efforts to reform our trade processes. In other words, to devise ways to "do business the way business does business." One such initiative U.S. Customs will present at this year's Directors' General conference is our Entry Revision Project. Entry Revision came about as a direct response to what the trade perceived as shortcomings in the Customs Modernization Act of 1993. That legislation, passed by the U.S. congress, ushered in a new generation of changes in Customs procedures.

Since that time, the trade has come back to us to push for new reforms in the entry process. Over the past several years, U.S. Customs has worked closely with private industry to streamline trade entries, and to offer new features that make the system easier to use -- the use of credit cards, for example; periodic billing; and alignment of our payment and reconciliation procedures with corporate accounting cycles.

We'll be presenting the main features of the project to our Customs counterparts at the end of the week, and we'll be receiving a good dose of some of their best practices in return. All this cooperation is aimed at two main goals: first, to learn from each other how to build Customs administrations of the highest professional caliber -- agencies that are flexible, responsive, and prepared for the intensive challenges placed on business by the force of global trade. Second, to ensure transparency across Customs regimes.

At their meeting last November in Toronto, FTAA trade ministers adopted a package offering greater transparency and eight Customs business facilitation measures. The transparency initiatives were agreed to immediately. The Customs measures, all of which I'm happy to report the U.S. already has in place, will be implemented across the FTAA region by April 2001.

We must work diligently to spread this uniformity; to adopt existing international standards, such as the Harmonized System, the WTO Valuation Code, the Revised Kyoto Convention; and soon, an Origin Code. And we must strive constantly to enhance the predictability of Customs rules and regulations for business throughout the Western Hemisphere.

One thing we know for certain: the framework for a Free Trade Area of the Americas is firmly in place. We must keep pace with the timetable for its advancement. If we continue the level of commitment to open communication exemplified by this Symposium and our regional DG conference -- and if we continue this level of cooperation -- Customs and the trade will stay well out in front of the challenges to come, and success will be ours.