At the end of Operation ASEAN Cosmo, conducted by the Strategic Trade Control Enforcement (STCE) Programme in February 2020, the WCO encouraged some of the members involved to strengthen their capacity in combating illicit trafficking of strategic commodities and offered training support.

Philippine Customs took advantage of the offer of a national training in the field of STCE, however, with the global pandemic prohibiting travels across the world, the WCO was able to provide support through the series of online STCE trainings it has been delivering since June 2020. This course was delivered to our Philippine Customs between 17-20 November 2020, and it is hoped to be followed up by a live event in 2021.

The STCE team invited two members of the Philippine Strategic Trade Management Office (STMO), to present on the details of the Philippine’s national strategic trade control legislation and system, while other members of the STMO were among the participants of the event. Additional external assistance was received from a member of Indonesian Customs who is an accredited STCE trainer, as well as from experts of the United Stated Department of Energy (US DoE).

Officers attending the training were first to have had the possibility to test the functionality of the online version of the Strategic Trade Atlas, developed jointly by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (EU JRC) and the US DoE, a tool to facilitate the understanding of global trade flows of strategic goods. At this was followed up with training on STCE Audit and Risk Management, to Customs better identify higher risk shipments..

Feedback received from participants was very positive and favorable, as testified by the following comment: “I’m beyond grateful for the STCE National Training delivered to Philippine Customs front liners. Not only did we learn a lot during the 4-day training, but this is also an opportune time to strengthen our interagency cooperation with STMO.”

The STCE Programme continues to plan webinars and virtual national, as well as regional trainings in 2021 and hopes to be able to resume live events soon, along with conducting additional regional and sub-regional operations respectively in the field of STC.