Customs and Trade Facilitation training in St. Kitts

On 19 April last took place in Basseterre (St. Kitts and Nevis) a training course on Customs and Trade Facilitation.
The course was targeted at Customs, other trade regulatory agencies and the private sector on customs and trade facilitation measures. Enhanced knowledge on these matters is considered vital in the context of bilateral trade agreements, especially the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.
The course provided the participants a general knowledge of customs and trade facilitation measures in the EPA as well as an understanding of their role in the successful implementation of these measures in inter-regional and international trade.
Of particular benefit to St. Kitts and Nevis’s public and private sectors, trade facilitation is intended to create an enabling environment that speeds up the passage of legitimate trade goods through border controls, allowing customs to focus on goods that pose a significant risk.
The training course is an output of the CARIFORUM-EU Capacity Building Project that is funded under the 10th EDF. The project’s overall objective is to support CARIFORUM Member States’ beneficial integration in the world economy. Specifically, it seeks to help member states to implement their EPA commitments in the areas of Competition, Procurement and Customs and Trade Facilitation. A consortium led by Equinoccio (Spain) which includes the London School of Economics (UK), SGS (Netherlands) and Maastricht School of Management (Netherlands) is implementing the project.