AT the meeting of the Committee on Market
Access,
Canada last week announced that it has decided to become a
tariff-free
zone for manufacturing inputs and machinery. Two-pronged objective
of Canada
is to help global economy recover fast and also help Canadian Cos
to raise
their bar of competitiveness.
Canada
said before that the main beneficiaries of this initiative
would be small
and medium-sized companies that must source goods for production
from global
supply chains. Beyond lower costs through elimination of tariffs,the
SMEs would also see a reduction in the costs
of customs paperwork by eliminating the need to comply with certain
preferential rules of origin requirements.
In
its communication to the Committee, Canada has stated that 214
tariff lines,
with an average tariff rate of 5.2% and accounting for over C$2
billion
in annual dutiable imports, were reduced to zero. The government
announced
a second set of tariff liberalization measures that eliminates the
most-favoured-nation
applied rates of customs duty on an additional 1,541 tariff items.
The majority
of these items became duty-free effective from March 5, 2010, with
the remainder
scheduled to be gradually eliminated by no later than 1 January 2015.
A
representative of the World Customs Organization (WCO) made a
detailed
presentation to the Committee on changes in
the Harmonized Sytem of Customs Nomenclature that will enter into
force on
1 January 2012.
The
Committee also elected Mr Daniel Owoko, a Kenyan, as its new chair.
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