In the period 11-14 January 2010 a promising start has been made of a management development process at the Macedonian Customs Administration. This process is the result of an initiative, taken by the Director of the Macedonian Customs Administration, Mr. Vanco Kargov, and is performed in cooperation with two experts from the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, Mr. Clemens van Merwijk and Mr. Paul Boer. A core management group of leading Customs officials has been established which will explore possibilities for a change towards a future oriented approach of leading a complex governmental organization such as the Customs Administration. An important element of this process is the introduction of 'Competence Management', a human resources (HR) instrument that has been developed in the Netherlands in recent years. It has proven to be a strong and effective instrument to improve the quality of both management and the employees of an organisation. The experts from the Netherlands will visit Macedonia again in the course of 2010 to assist the Director General of the Customs and his colleagues in implementing this challenging initiative. This activity is part of the broader framework of assistance provided  under the bilateral twinning programme between the Dutch and Macedonian Customs Administrations funded by the Netherlands since 2005.