The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with International Trade Center recently, conducted a workshop recently through a train-the-trainer methodology to create awareness among the private sector on the latest WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.
The two-day workshop conducted in Colombo early this month was aimed at helping businesses, especially the local SME sector to understand the terms, potential benefits and practical use of each of the technical measures of the new Agreement and to equip them to contribute to the design, implementation and monitoring of the Trade Facilitation potential implementation choices.
The training session was delivered by ITC trained national consultants sourced by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
Among them were Ravindra Kumar, former Director, Policy, Planning and Research of Sri Lanka Customs and former Chairman for WCO Customs Valuation Committee, Dinesh de Silva, Head of Shipping, Unilever Sri Lanka and Ceylon Chamber of Commerce representative on NTFC and the Chairman of Import Section of the Ceylon Chamber, Immediate Past Chairman of Sri Lanka Shippers Council and Rezvan Rasheed, Managing Director and CEO of BAZ Global Logistics CMB.
The TFA can be a game changer for Sri Lanka’s international trade and could bring bigger benefits for business than trade liberalization, it was revealed at the seminar.
Two similar workshops will be held in Colombo early next year, while workshops will also be conducted in places such as Jaffna, Batticaloa, Ampara and Hambantota.WTO members concluded negotiations at the 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference on the landmark Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which entered into force on February 22, 2017, following its ratification by two-thirds of the WTO membership, operationalizing the Agreement on Trade Facilitation is a path to internationalization, which will allow them to access international value chains at lower cost and at greater speeds.
Sri Lanka is a signatory and has agreed to undertake many trade facilitation reforms.
The TFA can be a game changer for Sri Lanka’s international trade and could bring bigger benefits for business than trade liberalization, it was revealed at the seminar.
Two similar workshops will be held in Colombo early next year, while workshops will also be conducted in places such as Jaffna, Batticaloa, Ampara and Hambantota.
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