Review
The Economic Complementation Trade Agreement (ACE) No. 35 between MERCOSUR and Chile is due to enter into force in October 1996.
Since then, various aspects of the Original Agreement have been updated, including entire chapters on different disciplines. Each of these modifications - which were agreed upon in due time - is reflected in an instrument called the "Additional Protocol" and, to date, there are 68 Additional Protocols in this ACE.
One of the negotiated disciplines is the Agreement's Rules of Origin (Annex 13), which establishes the origin requirements that must be met by the products traded in order to benefit from the tariff preferences of this Agreement. Regarding the latter, it should be noted that in most cases they are at the level of 100% preference, meaning that if the rule of origin is met, the product enters the market without paying tariffs.
The date of the last update of the Origin Regime was during the year 2009 and it came into force in the year 2015 (63rd PA of ACE 35). That is to say, in the case of this new update, a period of 15 years has been exceeded between the previous one and this last one achieved on June 6, 2024 with the consensus of all parties.
Negotiation process
Between the end of 2021 and June 2024, ten meetings of the Origin Expert Group were held, the last being the 3th Ordinary Meeting held from June 6 to XNUMX, during which the necessary consensus was finally reached for the closure.
Although the task of the technical team was officially concluded at this meeting, the decision-making body of said Agreement, which is its Administrative Commission, to whom the technical Committee submits its projects and who finally validates and approves them through a new meeting, remains to be convened. Additional Protocol.
Main modifications
Within the update, the entire text of the Regime was revised, improving the quality of its wording, incorporating in some cases new articles and mechanisms of the latest generation agreements in order to facilitate trade. The main changes were established in articles such as definitions, tolerance, principle of non-alteration, extension of the validity of the certificate of origin for one year, certification by entities and promotion of the use of the COD and incorporation of the alternative of self-certification in the future, change in the formula for calculating value, now having to measure the maximum value of non-originating materials (previously the regional added value was measured), redefinition of the DJO, optimization of the terms and the process of verification and control of origin, among others.
It is worth highlighting that the implementation of the new Mercosur ROM (Dec. CMC No. 05/23) and the large number of trade agreements that both Chile and MERCOSUR are negotiating had a lot to do with it, and that the need to update and modernize the applicable regulations is an extremely important and necessary fact in view of the current demands of International Trade.
The bilateral appendices that each MERCOSUR partner has with Chile in the automotive sector were also reviewed, and in the case of Argentina in particular, it was possible to incorporate modifications aimed at making the rules of the sector more flexible and including provisions that contemplate new technologies and models.
Regarding the Appendix of origin requirements of the Agreement, which applies to all partners, flexibilities were introduced that are in line with what was mentioned above and with the new ROM.
Towards the future
This conclusion of the update and modernization of the Origin Regime of ACE No. 35 represents a significant achievement for both the MERCOSUR countries and Chile, which made the greatest efforts - in addition to strictly technical issues - to achieve the central objective of improving the conditions to promote bilateral trade, taking into account that Chile is a very important trading partner and that it was important, beyond the geographical proximity and the total exemption of trade, to have rules that guarantee such a condition.
Regarding the terms of validity, once the corresponding Additional Protocol has been approved as mentioned above, it will depend on the internalization of the Agreement into the internal legal system by each Member Country for its effective entry into force.
She holds a degree in International Trade (Universidad Nacional de Luján) with postgraduate studies in the Master's Degree in International Economic Relations (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero). She has been a professional development fellow of the Organization of American States (OAS) at the George Washington University School of Law (USA). In the academic field, she is a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Luján. In the professional field, she has been an official of the Secretariat of Commerce dependent on the Ministry of Economy of the Nation, since 2005. Currently, she is the National Coordinator of the Technical Committee No. 3 "Trade Standards and Disciplines" in charge of the negotiations of rules of origin of MERCOSUR; in addition, she is the Alternate National Coordinator of the Technical Committee No. 8 "Transposition of nomenclature of trade agreements with third countries and groups of countries" also of MERCOSUR.
