15 Comesa members ready to pilot eCO system

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE is among the 15 countries from the 21-Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) member States that have expressed readiness to implement the region’s Electronic Certificate of Origin (eCo) pilot project.
The need to start implementing the new system has gained urgency given the challenges that movement of cargo across borders is facing due to restrictive measures put in place in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Other countries that are ready to pilot the project are Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Seychelles, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia.
The eCO will replace the onerous manual certificates and manual process.
“Comesa member states are ready to start piloting the Comesa eCO system. The eCO is one of the latest tools developed under the Comesa Digital Free Trade Area (DFTA) initiative,” said the trading block in a latest update.
Certificates of Origin are issued to exporters within the Comesa Free Trade Area (FTA) to confer preferential treatment to goods originating from FTA member states.
The uptake of the electronic certificate failed to gain traction among member states in the past for lack of the necessary regulations under the Comesa Rules of Origin (RoO).
The decision to adopt the eCo was made by the Council of Ministers in 2014 to replace the manual certification process.
“The objective was to facilitate intra-regional trade through reduction in the costs and time required in registration, application and submission of certificates and the post-verification of originating goods,” said Comesa.
In November last year, the 40th Meeting of the Council of Ministers adopted the draft regulations to implement the Comesa eCO system.
Subsequently, a technical working group on rules of origin was tasked to review the rules to facilitate implementation of the Comesa eCO and other trade facilitation instruments.
On the 10th of this month, Comesa secretariat undertook to collaborate with member states that are ready to pilot the system to develop national piloting plans to ensure that electronic certificates are implemented sooner rather than later.
“The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic calls for speedy implementation of the Comesa eCo by all member states,” the trading bloc’s director of Trade and Customs, Dr Christopher Onyango, was quoted as saying.
“This together with the improvement of customs cooperation and trade facilitation, will no doubt enhance intra-regional trade and attract more investments into the region.”
Dr Onyango noted that the region was facing two critical challenges: firstly, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has changed ways of conducting businesses across the world thereby threatening to reverse the gains already made in fostering a liberalised trade regime.
Secondly, the value of intra-Comesa trade has remained stagnant and does not mirror the instruments put in place, especially under the FTA trade regime adopted way back in 2000.
“It is rather disheartening that despite the preferences offered under the FTA, intra-Comesa trade is at eight percent of total trade, compared to Africa’s 15 percent, America’s 47 percent, Asia’s 61 percent and Europe’s 67 percent,” Dr Onyango noted.
As the technical working group reviews the protocols on RoO to incorporate the eCO, Dr Onyongo urged the team to consider rules that are simple, transparent, predictable and trade-facilitating for businesses and trade operators.
“It is important to remember that RoO have a direct impact on the uptake of preferences and the rate of preference utilisation.
“They are not just the passport for circulating goods under preferential tariffs but are the cornerstone behind effective application of preferences towards member states,” he said. — @okazunga
Comments