Early 2020 saw the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to almost every country on the planet. Healthcare workers, road hauliers, logistics specialists, international freight forwarders, agrifood … cooperatives… much has been said and written in the media about the problems faced by these groups of professionals as a result of the crisis. Are Customs brokers facing the same challenges?

It is often said that where there is a will there’s a way, but the reverse can also be true: improving Customs administrations’ capacity to understand and implement regulations might influence … their willingness to make commitments.

When it was announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) that COVID-19 had become a pandemic, the WCO Secretariat’s management team quickly sprang into action, listing the urgent tasks to … be done to support Customs administrations in managing the crisis and developing a business continuity plan.

Since December 2019, when the first cases where identified, the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread with dramatic consequences for people, governments, and companies. Although we … will only be able to make a preliminary assessment of its full consequences in the coming months, most analysts agree that the crisis will have a long-term impact.

Border agencies face many challenges and are today operating in an era of unprecedented change. An increasingly volatile global travel and trade environment combined with new security and public … health threats, make for a challenging and evolving operating environment that requires close observation, and coordinated and far-reaching responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives in ways that we never imagined. One thing, however, has become very clear; the continued importance of global trade and of initiatives supporting the … smooth flow of goods across borders, especially essential goods to areas where they are most needed.

With the current global spotlight on wild animal markets as a possible source of the COVID-19 epidemic, it is easy to forget that the biggest flows of “wildlife” in trade involve plants, not … animals. There are also important conservation and health reasons to keep a close eye on the wild plant trade sector during this global health emergency.

In choosing the most cost-effective option to distribute goods, supply chain managers all over the world have four transport options to choose from: ocean-going vessel, plane, train, or truck. … But for European distribution there is also another efficient option available, shortsea shipping (SSS).

The International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures, known as the Kyoto Convention, was adopted on 19 May 1973 and entered into force on 25 September 1974 … with 63 Contracting Parties. Twenty years later, in 1994, a decision to revise the Convention was taken, and, in June 1999, a Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) was adopted. It entered into force on 3 February 2006 after 40 Contracting Parties to the Kyoto Convention had acceded to the Protocol of Amendment. In February 2020, there were 122 Contracting Parties to the RKC.

WCO Members have been drawing and sharing lessons from their experiences in combating illicit trade associated with Free Zones (FZs) for decades now. One lesson is that there is a need for effective … or better monitoring and control by Customs over these zones. However, changing existing FZ regimes requires action by policymakers, and convincing them to do so has been rather difficult at times.

The effort undertaken by the WCO in building a comprehensive Performance Measurement mechanism (PMM) to measure the performance of Customs administrations aims at strengthening a measurement … culture among the WCO Membership, and at enabling them to develop metrics for strategic planning and evidence-based decision making.