CBP and WTO Hosted Caribbean Trade Facilitation Workshop
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a news release announcing that customs and ministerial officials from twelve Caribbean countries participated in a World Trade Organization Regional Workshop on the Trade Facilitation Negotiations hosted by the U.S. government on November 14 -- 19, 2010.
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Along with a representative of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, officials from Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago participated in the meeting.
(The workshop is part of the technical assistance and support for capacity building of the WTO Negotiations on Trade Facilitation, which seeks to assist each country’s customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues, in order to be able to participate more effectively in all rounds of negotiations.)
CBP Staff Provided Guidance, Lessons Learned from Implemented Activities
CBP staff from the Office of Trade, Office of Information Technology, and Office of Administration provided guidance and lessons learned in the activities the U.S. has implemented that appear in the current draft WTO negotiating text, through various programs such as the Importer Security Filing (10+2), Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), and Importer Self-Assessment (ISA), among others.
Participants also visited the Port of San Juan, where CBP's San Juan Field Office provided insight into the methodologies and the infrastructure available to control and expedite merchandise flows in these busy ports.
CBP Looking to Cut Costs, Take Work Away from Border
CBP Assistant Commissioner Dan Baldwin said that CBP needs to understand the overall impact of its mission on the economic and commercial environment by finding alternatives on how to do its work, how to cut costs to traders, and how to take work away from the physical border.
CBP Says Trade Community is Looking for Transparency, Predictability, Certainty
Baldwin also commented that the trade community is looking for transparency, predictability and certainty. Advance rulings/advance information fit in here by streamlining process as much as possible; allowing entire countries to be safe from unhealthy products and, at the same time, make trade facilitation a reality.