The Latin American Meeting of National Trade Facilitation Committees is an annual meeting that promotes cooperation between institutions involved in border trade. The third edition, organized by the WTO in collaboration with the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI), was held from May 23 to 26 in Montevideo (Uruguay).
The event was attended by 60 participants from the public and private sector 18 Latin American countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The meeting, held in person, was held to continue the discussions of the second meeting held in February 2022 also at the ALADI headquarters (Uruguay). In particular, the attendees gave follow-up on topics of interest, such as the digitalization of business processes, risk management of urgent shipments, monitoring of implementation, cooperation with donors and participation of the private sector.
The event also included representatives of the permanent missions to ALADI, as well as experts from important organizations that have committed to helping WTO Members implement their commitments under the Trade Facilitation Agreement. These included the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Conference of Express Companies of Latin America and the Caribbean (CLADEC), the Andean Community (CAN), the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, the World Customs Organization (WCO-WCO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the European Union, as well as USAID.
Respondents during the 2023 event expressed satisfaction. According to the results released by the organizers, the Third Latin American Meeting of National Trade Facilitation Committees was rated as “very useful”. Precisely, 48% recommend the experience to their colleagues and 100% indicated that doing the Third Meeting in person was much more beneficial than having done it virtually. (Report of the Third Latin American Meeting of National Committees for Trade Facilitation)
Source: WTO, ALADI, Trade Facilitation Agreement Mechanism.
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