International Trade Centre, Switzerland trade expert to conduct workshop on trade facilitation
Tuesday, 25 March 2014 00:00
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Trade facilitation looks at how procedures and controls relating to the movement of goods across national borders can be simplified. Simplification of the import and export procedures reduces the delays and the costs for exporters and importers and finally helps to reduce the cost of goods to consumers.
After more than nine years of negotiations, WTO members finally reached consensus on a Trade Facilitation (TF) Agreement at the Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013. The final agreement provides a framework to implement faster and more efficient customs procedures through cooperation between customs and other authorities. 159 WTO member countries are required to implement the commitments in the Trade facilitation agreement by easing systems and procedures on a stage by stage basis.
Brian O’Shea, Customs and Trade Facilitation Advisor, International Trade Centre, Switzerland will be the key resource person at the seminar and the workshop. He has over 20 years of experience in customs and trade facilitation procedural reforms and in design of customs automated processing systems.
The Seminar on “WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation: How can it help Sri Lankan businesses?” will be held on 3 April 2014 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Ceylon Chamber auditorium. It is mainly intended for mid-senior management in the private sector. Brian O’Shea will brief the participants on the TF Agreement and H.M.S. Premaratne, Deputy Director (Policy, Planning and Research) Sri Lanka Customs will speak about where Sri Lanka is positioned right now and what actions Customs has planned to implement the agreement. The two presentations will be followed by a panel discussion. The private sector inputs during the panel discussion are specifically important to ensure that the private sector issues are placed for consideration in developing Sri Lanka’s implementation program.
A full day training workshop on “Business Implications of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement” will be held on 4 April 2014 at Cinnamon Grand, Colombo. The workshop is mainly targeted at the operational level staff in the private sector, who is engaged in import and export processing and invited officials from relevant public sector organisations. The workshop will be conducted by O’Shea and at the end of the workshop; there will be a working group session on an export transaction case study and an import transaction case study.
Registration for the seminar and the workshop are handled by Sriyani Chandrasekera of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
The event is jointly organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the International Trade Centre.
The International Trade Centre has estimated that the removal of these barriers to trade could reduce the total trade costs by 10% in advanced economies and by 13-15.5% in developing economies. They believe the agreement has the potential to be of particular benefit to traders in developing countries, who continually face lengthy and costly border delays.
