Aligned with Commissioner Bienvenido Y. Rubio’s priority programs in digitalizing Customs processes and simplifying procedures to facilitate secure trade, representatives from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) recently met with the ARISE Plus Philippines Project to discuss activities and technical assistance for the implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) and WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).

The series of activities focus on key emerging trade facilitation areas, namely the Integrated Risk Management (IRM), Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) and e-commerce clearance, and taxation, as well as for the operationalization of the Philippine Trade Facilitation Committee (PTFC). These are implemented from March 2023 until February 2024 under the Year 3 support of the ARISE Project.

The ARISE Plus Philippines Project is a 4-year project, with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as lead partner, together with the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the BOC, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), as well as the private sector. It is funded by the European Union (EU) with the International Trade Centre (ITC) as the technical agency for the project.

Under its Year 2 Work Plan, the BOC and ARISE Plus Philippines conducted series of consultative sessions with the BOC e-Commerce Technical Working Group for the development of the draft Customs Administrative Order (CAO) and Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) on e-Commerce. In addition, focused sessions dedicated to the discussion and line-by-line review of the BOC-PHLPOST MOA were also conducted which resulted in considerable progress in the draft MOA.

Meanwhile, the Interim AEO Office and the Risk Management Office (RMO) are currently engaged with the ARISE Plus Philippines in finalizing the inter-agency sharing guidelines for the IRM and AEO programs. A gap analysis for the ASEAN AEO Mutual Recognition Agreement is also underway to help the BOC in its implementation of a dynamic AEO program, including the participation of the Trade Regulatory Government Agencies (TRGAs) and the economic operators

Series of public outreach activities are also in the pipeline to expand awareness of the trading community, TRGAs and PTFC to further support the readiness of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to comply with existing international commitments, including new or evolving requirements.