A loan contract for strengthening of the Single Electronic Window (SEW) for trade and business facilitation was signed on Friday by Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis and President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Luis Alberto Moreno at the President’s Office, Bridgewater Hall, Nassau, the Bahamas.
The SEW loan is for modernisation of the customs system, a major source of fiscal revenue, and allows for implementation of an electronic payment system for users and tax payers.
“The strengthening of the Single Electronic Window provides us with a dual opportunity to both increase our competitive advantage and productivity, while decreasing our inefficiencies,” said Robinson-Regis, who also reiterated that these features are important to boost the competitiveness of T&T’s economy, and ease of trading to build national capacity.
The signing took place during the 57th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the IDB and the 31st Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) from April 7-10, 2016.
Robinson-Regis, T&T Governor on the Board of Governors of the IDB, headed a team of professionals from the Ministry of Planning and Development, the Tobago House of Assembly, the Central Bank of T&T and the Ministry of Finance at the meetings in Nassau.
Through the loan, T&T’s trade facilitation environment will be updated bringing it to world class standards, reducing time and cost of imports and exports. It is expected to have a positive effect on revenue and the competitiveness of the private sector, while fulfilling the country’s commitments under the WTO-Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), and the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union (EPA).
The project will also extend the leadership of T&T in this area and will make possible initial interoperability with other countries such as Costa Rica and the Pacific Alliance Countries.