The World Customs Organisation (WCO) Knowledge Academy’s one-week intensive training course, facilitated by 40 prominent speakers and facilitators, took place at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium during the week of 02 July. The training included a one-day field trip to the port of Rotterdam which provided an opportunity for participants to visit Europe’s largest bunkering and sea port as well as the Customs Museum. The port of Rotterdam owes its position to its outstanding accessibility for sea-going vessels and its intermodal connections, with 180 000 people working in the port and the adjacent industrial area.
The training programme focused on all aspects of Customs work relating to e-commerce; the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA); the SAFE Framework of Standards to secure and facilitate global trade; Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW); Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Record (PNR); drug trafficking; Post-Clearance Audit (PCA); Trends and patterns in the illicit trade of excisable goods; Money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing; Capacity building; Insecurity and cross-border trade: Potential uses of modelling for Customs intelligence; the Harmonized System (HS) for the classification of goods; Rules of Origin (RoO); and customs valuation.