The WCO conducted a four day national workshop on Strategic Trade Controls Enforcement (STCE) in Karachi from 26th to 29th June. The training was attended by 55 supervisory and frontline officials from different Customs offices. It was nineteenth national STCE workshop delivered by the WCO since 2016. The event started with opening remarks delivered by the Director General Training and Research of Pakistan Customs who emphasized the importance of capacity building for effective enforcement of strategic trade controls and to meet the expectations of international security community. During the workshop participants were introduced to the concepts and principles related to STCE; they were familiarized with dual use commodities and were also provided opportunities to undertake practical exercises and group discussions.

Prior to training, the WCO mission met with the senior management of Pakistan Customs, including Mr. Muhammad Zahid, the Director General Federal Board of Revenue, in Islamabad. The senior management was briefed about the practical application of WCO guidelines and international best practices for effective enforcement of strategic trade controls. Pakistan Customs indicated its commitment to create dedicated counter proliferation teams by utilizing the WCO STCE guidelines and the human resource trained  under WCO STCE Programme. These teams will be over exports and transit traffic and will provide a more focused effort in the area of STCE.  

Facilitating national STCE workshops is one of most important components of STCE Programme which aims at capacity building of  the Customs community to enforce strategic trade controls in an effective and efficient manner. The programme is committed to conduct more events in future in Brussels and across the WCO regions. For additional information please contact Adam Vas, STCE Programme Coordinator, Adam.Vas@wcoomd.org.