Your trade and customs knowledge
go-to-place

On May 30, 2024, the Advocate General (AG) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a very interesting opinion in the case Harley-Davidson v. Commission (C-297/23 P). This … case, currently awaiting a final decision by the CJEU, holds substantial implications for importers needing to determine the non-preferential origin of goods within the EU.

In 2023, Côte d’Ivoire introduced a new and modern system of advance customs rulings. This development followed two workshops organised in Côte d’Ivoire in May 2023 with the German Alliance for … Trade Facilitation and under the aegis of the EU-WCO Programme for the Harmonized System in Africa funded by the EU. The workshops were part of a wider capacity-building programme to support Côte d’Ivoire in meeting its WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement obligations - in particular, Article 3 of the TFA which requires signatory parties to provide an option to apply advance rulings on origin and classification.

Recently, trade relations between Turkey and Israel have been shaky. Although Turkey and Israel have had a free trade agreement for many years, Turkey announced that it would stop all trade with … Israel, to which Israel responded that it intended to abolish the free trade agreement and also impose additional 100% tariffs on imports from Turkey. This crisis will not only affect the two parties, but possibly also EU traders.

The new, revised Pan European Mediterranean (PEM) rules of origin will enter into force on 1 January 2025 for all parties of the PEM Convention. Traders importing and exporting within the PEM … origin cumulation zone will be able to use the new, more business-friendly and flexible rules. Even when trading with countries that have not opted to use transitional rules.

The rules of non-preferential origin are specific provisions, developed from principles established by national legislation or international agreements ('origin criteria'), applied by a country … to determine the origin of goods.

Rules of preferential origin are an essential element of preferential trade agreements. They define the conditions under which a product is regarded as originating and can benefit from lower … rates of duty upon importation in the country of destination.

Product-specific rules of preferential origin determine requirements of working or processing which must be done on non-originating materials in order for the product manufactured to obtain originating … status.

‘Importer’s knowledge’ allows the importer to claim preferential tariff treatment based on evidence they have obtained about the originating status of imported products. This evidence must be … in the importer’s possession, be in form of supporting documents or records which may be provided by the exporter or producer and provide evidence that the product qualifies as originating.