Equal and fair treatment for businesses across the region will be one of the benefits of harmonised customs regulations to be implemented in Caricom member states. David Hales, director of External Trade at the Caricom Secretariat, told the T&T Guardian the initiative, which is the focus of a meeting currently taking place in Antigua and Barbuda, will result in greater ease of doing business with Caribbean customs authorities.
He said regulations to treat with drug and arms trafficking and other illicit activities are also being discussed. "I think some of the provisions that are being looked at would impact those occurrences. I am not in a position to go into details about it. Yes, they are looking at how some of these occurrences can be addressed in the regulations that are taking place, so similarity of action by customs across the region would help," Hales said.
"Obviously gun running and movement of drugs you will have individual countries taking action at a security level but from a customs perspective, I think there would be some similarity of action." Hales said customs administrations throughout the Caribbean face some challenges, including limited staffing and outdated technology but there seems to enough political will to implement harmonised regulations.
"I see no reason why there shouldn't be the political will to implement the procedures which in a way doesn't have any political impact. It is strictly to improve our customs administration function and to create an ease of doing business with the customs regionally," he said. Hales said the harmonised regulations are part of a Caricom effort to create an enabling environment for greater inter-regional trade.
Agreement for harmonisation was reached last August and the only outstanding issue is the drafting of regulations–the focus of the current meeting as well as a second which will take place in T&T in March. Both meetings are organised by Caricom with the support of the ACP Business Climate Facility (BizClim). A harmonised customs bill will see improved regional integration and bring economic benefits to the region, including greater foreign direct investment, reduced clearance times for goods at ports of entry and greater support of regional companies as they expand their operations to other territories.