Experts Receive Training to Remove Barriers to Sub-Regional Trade

Yaounde - Cameroon — - A training workshop for members of the National Approval Committee and economic stakeholders in the Republic of Congo on the procedures for accrediting their industrial products into the ECCAS-CEMAC Harmonized Preferential Tariff regime, ha kicked off today in Brazzaville.

The activity is part of a contribution agreement signed by the European Union (EU) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) for the further harmonization of ECCAS and CEMAC trade policy instruments.

The three-day workshop will allow economic stakeholders and members of Congo's National Approvals Committee for the Accreditation of Industrial Products into the ECCAS-CEMAC Harmonized Preferential Tariff regime to:

become better acquainted with the harmonized instruments and tools of the ECCAS Free Trade Area;
master the process of compiling application files for the accreditation of industrial products into the ECCAS-CEMAC Harmonized Preferential Tariff regime;
become familiar with the techniques for gauging the origin of community-produced industrial products; and,
internalize the techniques of evaluating and verifying information provided by economic Stakeholders in the context of their applications for accreditation.

The training will therefore enable Congolese companies to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the approximately 170 million-strong community market of the sub-region, which will extend to the rest of Africa with the advent of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The Brazzaville workshop follows three others organized in: Libreville - Gabon from 19 to 21 June 2018, Yaounde - Cameroon from 3 to 5 July 2018, and N'Djamena - Chad from 10 to 12 July 2018, for economic stakeholders and members of the National Approvals Committee of these countries. The very next training workshop is for scheduled Kinshasa - Democratic Republic of the Congo from 14 to 16 November 2018.

Three other workshops are planned for later dates in Bangui in the Central African Republic, Malabo in Equatorial Guinea, and Sao Tome in Sao Tome and Principe.

It should be noted that the instruments of ECCAS and CEMAC Free Trade areas, notably the Preferential Tariff, around which this series of workshops is being organized, were harmonized by the Steering Committee for the Rationalization of Regional Economic Communities in Central Africa (COPIL / CER-AC), on 27 November, 2017.

Read the original article on UNECA.