An online platform has been launched for the delivrance of the Certificates of Origin.  This platform is named the DigiChambers and has been developed by the Belgian Chambers of Commerce in cooperation with the Federal Public Service Economy and the Department for Administrative Simplification.

From now on, you have the possibility to apply online on the website of the DigiChambers for your Certificates of Origin and have them printed at your desk after approval of the Chamber of Commerce. You can upload attachments in several formats which are automatically converted to PDF.

You can contact your local Chamber of Commerce for more information. They are shortly organizing sessions on the use of this platform.

Click here for access to the DigiChambers website.

The EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) is a trade arrangement through which the EU provides preferential access to the EU market to 176 developing countries and territories, in the form of reduced tariffs for their goods when entering the EU market.

GSP covers three separate preference regimes:

• the standard GSP, which provides preferences to 176 developing countries and territories on around 6400 tariff lines;
• the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance, known as GSP+, which offers additional tariff reductions to support vulnerable developing countries in their ratification and implementation of international conventions;
• the Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangement, which provides Duty-free, Quota-Free access for all products for the 50 Least-Developed Countries on 7200 tariff lines.

The 16 beneficiary countries from 1 January 2009 until the end of 2011 will be: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Sri Lanka and Venezuela.  These countries will have duty-free access to the EU market for around 6400 tariff lines in addition to the standard GSP.

GSP+ preferences are of real economic value to the beneficiary countries: in 2007 there was 4.7 billion € worth of trade under this scheme, with a nominal duty loss (compared to standard GSP rates) for the EU of over 357 million €. The duty-free access means a considerable tariff reduction over the rates applied under the regular GSP scheme. Tariff cuts include tobacco (cut by up to 52%), various fruit juices (up to 30%), fruits (up to 20%), vegetables (up to 14%), fish (up to 20%) and honey (up to 17%).

Source: Weekly Trade News of the European Commission, 11 december 2008.

The AEO status took legal effect on 1 January 2008.  Since then the customs administrations in the EC received hundreds of applications.  The vast majority of the applications are for a combined customs simplification and safety and security AEO certificate and have been received from a wide range of businesses, including importers, exporters and freight agents.

In the meanwhile, the first applications have completed the authorisation process and AEO certificates have been issued to the successful applicants (a.o. in Denmark, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands).   We expect the number of applications to grow in the coming months.

It is also expected that the benefits of AEO status will increase once mutual recognition agreements are in place.  The EC is currently in negotiation with a number of third countries, with the United States and China taking priority because of the volumes of trade involved.  An agreement has been concluded with the US on strengthened co-operation on security with the US and there are on-going discussions with the US to reach a mutual recognition of our standards.  According to our information the US authorities will expand the C-TPAT certificate with export transactions.  To our opinion this decision will speed up the mutual recognition of the AEO and C-TPAT standards between the US and EU.  Next to this, a pilot project has been started to study the smart and secure trade lanes between the EC and China.

Next to the US and China, Norway and Switzerland are also taking priority due to their shared border with the EC.  It is expected that Norway and Switzerland will introduce AEO or an AEO equivalent regime as a result of new pre-notification rules being introduced in the EU from 1 July 2009.  These rules require information on consignments being imported into the EU to be provided between 1 and 24 hours before the consignment leaves its point of departure.  This rule may have major impact at the borders with Norway and Switzerland as it could cause huge traffic jams and lenghty waiting for customs administrations.