Trade facilitation reform expected to reduce private sector costs

Trade facilitation reform is expected to reduce the time and cost for St Vincent and the Grenadines’ private sector to engage in international trade.

This, according to Ben Czapnik, representative from the International Trade Centre, as he addressed the opening ceremony of a workshop on the World Trade Professional (WTP) Trade Facilitation agreement at the Ministry of Foreign {{more}}Affairs conference room last Wednesday.

“The aim of our work in St Vincent and the Grenadines at the moment is to do with benefiting the private sector through trade facilitation reforms,” explained Czapnik.

He outlined two such areas where improvements can be made to relieve some of the burden on members of the private sector to engage in international trade.

“A measure which I think is of interest to St Vincent is risk management. At the moment, Customs in St Vincent and the Grenadines is inspecting virtually all consignments which come into the country. This obviously increases the toss time and cost of importing goods into the country.”

He added that member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) — such as SVG — should introduce risk management, where only some consignments are inspected, and other low security consignments could be allowed through in a streamlined manner.

Another measure Czapnik suggested was establishing authorized economic operators who have track records of compliance, and who are already being offered a more streamlined customs process.

“In St Vincent and the Grenadines you do have a similar scheme; you have something called the gold card system. There are a few companies which are using it, but one of the questions we can look at today is whether there are ways we could make it available to more companies,” he noted.

Czapnik also pointed out that trade facilitations are extremely important, especially for the private sector, because “the private sector is the one which is impacted by inefficiencies at the border.”

Also speaking at Wednesday’s workshop, representative from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat Claude Paul noted that these facilitations are an important consideration for helping to reduce transaction costs, time and competitiveness.

“It is of particular importance to the private sector,” Paul said.

He noted that while in other OECS countries, he and his team had engaged with trade officers. How-ever, in SVG, there was a special session conducted for the private sector.

“We are very happy for this, because we believe the private sector can be a very influential force in helping to convince policy about the need for change. And in various measures that are in the trade facilitation agreement is of no doubt important to the private sector in terms of helping them to better business, and to improve their own profitability.”

Additionally, Paul said that alongside this, they are also engaged in efforts to deepen the integration process.

“We have been actively involved in a project which is intended to create a customs union and a free circulation of goods… which also in a sense is trade facilitation at the regional level, because it will help to remove some of the barriers to intra-OECS trade which currently exist,” he explained.

Paul stated that he hopes this facilitation would equip participants with the information to help convince persons at “the top of the food chain” for the need to have reform in this particular sector. (CM)