Single export window still elusive
Published:Monday | March 21, 2016 | 12:00 AM
The prospect of having a single window to facilitate outbound trade continues to occupy the minds of stakeholders.
Trade administrator and CEO of the Trade Board Limited Victor Cummings is joining the call for the implementation of plans to unify agencies and systems of government that facilitate cross-border business.
The system as it is now is a hindrance to trade and the ease of doing business, and the delay in creating a single export window undercuts Jamaica's
interests, he suggested.
"We just need to have that will to move forward. We've been talking about it for so long, we've done so much research, we've wasted so much I just want us to implement these things because it's what's in the best interest of the country," Cummings said at an export forum last Thursday.
He was part of an inter-agency panel examining export trade facilitation at the forum hosted by the Jamaica Exporters Association.
Cummings said there is an urgent need to integrate some Government departments that have overlapping functions. He feels that a lot of work has already been done and that what is needed now is the political will to implement the recommendations.
"The collaboration has been happening at the mid-level the technocrats. What we want now is to get the direction. Once we get that instruction and direction from the Cabinet that this is where we're going then we can move forward," he said.
Cummings' sentiments were similar to those of the Principal Director in the Public Sector Management Reform Unit at the Cabinet Office, Wayne Robertson, who said at least three factors had combined to lower Jamaica's position on the Doing Business subindex for 'trade across borders'.
Jamaica dropped one place in the sub-ranking from 145 to 146 in the 2016 report published by the World Bank.
Robertson defined the three issues as: high level of inspections, a lack of compliance with Hazard Analytical Critical Control Points (HACCP) standards and a low business capacity to comply with international trade requirements.
He said the Trade Facilitation Task force was dedicated to the task of unifying all trade facilitation efforts and assisting in removing impediments and getting to the desired goal of a single trade window.
"The implementation of the single window will require the modernisation of trade-related entities and this should be seen as a holistic effort - not just procedures, but also structures - and it is intended to bring trade facilitation systems in line with international best practices," Robertson said.