Trade Facilitation Agreement: Cameroon is Compliant

The National Committee on Trade Facilitation housed at the Prime Minister’s Office is organizing a workshop on the categorization of some measures. This workshop kicked off yesterday in Douala

The National Committee on Trade Facilitation housed at the Prime Minister’s Office is organizing a workshop on the categorization of some measures under the TFA, a tool of the World Trade Organisation. This workshop kicked off yesterday in Douala.

The workshop, organized in Douala on 2 and 3 March 2023 by the National Committee on Trade Facilitation (CONAFE), has as overall objective to enable Cameroon to finalize the process to notify the World Trade Organization (WTO) of Categories B and C measures of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). This workshop to categorize measures B and C of the TFA brings together members of the Technical Secretariat of CONAFE representing the implementing agencies of these measures. These agencies include public administrative bodies and actors of the private sector. The deliberations are chaired by Serge Dimitri Okono Ebanga, coordinator of the CONAFE Technical Secretariat.

Created in 2016, CONAFE is the body in Cameroon that is tasked with guaranteeing the simplification of external trade procedures for imports, exports and transit. The Committee was reorganized in 2022 to better monitor the implementation of the National Roadmap on Trade Facilitation (NRTF). This roadmap was adopted by the CONAFE Strategic Orientation Committee, chaired by the Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office.

It incorporates both measures to be implemented under the TFA and other provisions peculiar to Cameroon, which Government already began applying in a bid to ease trade. Concerning the TFA, a tool of the WTO, which entered into force on 22 February 2017, Cameroon notified Category A measures on 24 May 2016. Categories B and C measures were notified on 5 July 2019 though these are pending completion.

Read full article in Cameroon Tribune