TradeLane

On January 27^th, Tradewin published our ‘Reconciliation Step by Step’ guide. For those interested, a copy is available for download below:

It has been two years since the implementation of the United States – Mexico – Canada Free Trade Agreement. For those of you reading this outside of the US, the agreement is referred to in Canada as the Canada – United States – Mexico Agreement (CUSMA); and in Mexico, this agreement is referred to as Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC). All three names refer to the same trade agreement.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (“RCEP”) was signed on 15 November 2020 and entered into force on 1 January 2022 for ten countries: Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China*, Japan, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It was subsequently entered into force for the Republic of Korea on 1 February 2022 and Malaysia on 18 March 2022, and most recently ratified by Indonesia on 30 August 2022. RCEP is one of the largest free trade agreements (“FTA”), covering around one-third of the world’s population and accounting for about one-third of global GDP.

*Note that Hong Kong, China (“Hong Kong”) is a separate customs territory from the People’s Republic of China (“China”).

India is aggressively working with various countries and economic unions on Free Trade Agreements (FTA). Notwithstanding the benefits, compliance around the utilization has to be robust. We encourage traders to optimize the utilization of FTAs to reduce the duty impact while maintaining proper compliance requirements. If you have any queries on how the latest FTA may impact or benefit your organization, please reach out to our trade compliance consultant professionals at Tradewin India.

Pursuant to the introduction of CAROTAR, 2020, there were several difficulties that were being faced by legitimate importers resulting in delay or denial of preferential duty benefits available under Free Trade Agreements.