The Chair in Office of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), the Minister of Foreign and Domestic Trade and Telecommunications, is organizing a launch event of the new EU-Action “Support to Facilitation of Trade between CEFTA Parties” in cooperation with the two implementing agencies Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit” (GIZ) GmbH and the International Trade Centre (ITC).
Funded with a 3 million EUR grant from the European Union (EU), and supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Action aims to boost the trade relations and further deepen economic integration between the CEFTA Parties. The three-year project is being implemented by GIZ and ITC in close collaboration with the CEFTA Structures until December 2019.
The Action is designed to provide support to the CEFTA Structures in their efforts to implement the obligations from the Additional Protocol 5 to the CEFTA, which provides the framework for the elimination of trade barriers between the CEFTA parties. It aims to further facilitate regional trade in the CEFTA region through the reduction and eventual removal of the most distortive non-tariff measures to trade for two selected supply chains, and through the simplification and facilitation of trade related procedures. In doing so, it applies and innovative approach to identify trade barriers in a bottom up approach in close cooperation with the private sector.
For the purpose of eliminating barriers to trade and reducing the associated trade costs, the Action takes an integrated approach to address the three priorities through specifically tailored project components: harmonization (component 1), standardization (component 2) and simplification of rules and procedures (component 3) with a business-driven focus (component 0).
The launch event of the Action “Support to Facilitation of Trade between CEFTA Parties” will be held on April 6, 2017 at hotel Hyatt Regency Belgrade.
The opening session, from 09:30 to 10:15 will be addressed by H. E. Mr. Rasim Ljaljic, Minister of Foreign and Domestic Trade and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia (tbc); H.E. Mr. Michael Davenport, Head of EU Delegation to Serbia; H.E. Mr. Axel Dittman, Ambassador of The Federal Republic of Germany (tbc) as well as representatives of the project partners and experts.