APEC Project Proposal |
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| Project No. | CTI 06 2011A |
| Project Title | APEC Workshop on Self-Certification of Origin |
| Project Status | Completed Project |
| Publication (if any) | |
| Fund Account | APEC Support Fund |
| Sub-fund | ASF: General Fund |
| Project Year | 2011 |
| Project Session | Session 1 |
| APEC Funding | 86,738 |
| Co-funding Amount | 15,500 |
| Total Project Value | 102,238 |
| Sponsoring Forum | Market Access Group (MAG) |
| Topics | Market Access |
| Committee | Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) |
| Other Fora Involved | Not Applicable / Other |
| Other Non-APEC Stakeholders Involved | Not Applicable |
| Proposing Economy(ies) | Viet Nam |
| Co-Sponsoring Economies | Mexico;New Zealand;Singapore;United States |
| Expected Start Date | 29/04/2011 |
| Expected Completion Date | 31/12/2012 |
| Project Proponent Name 1 | Pham Quynh Mai |
| Job Title 1 | Director of APEC – ASEM Division |
| Organization 1 | Multilateral Trade Policy Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade |
| Postal Address 1 | 54 Hai Ba Trung Street, Hanoi, Viet Nam |
| Telephone 1 | 84-4-22205418 |
| Fax 1 | 84-4-22202525 |
| Email 1 | maipq@moit.gov.vn |
| Project Proponent Name 2 | Not Applicable |
| Job Title 2 | Not Applicable |
| Organization 2 | Not Applicable |
| Postal Address 2 | Not Applicable |
| Telephone 2 | Not Applicable |
| Fax 2 | Not Applicable |
| Email 2 | Not Applicable |
| Declaration | Pham Quynh Mai |
| Project Summary | The Project seeks APEC funding to organize a 2-day APEC Workshop on Self-Certification in Hanoi, Viet Nam in June 2011. The Workshop aims to enhance APEC member economies’ awareness on the importance of self-certification of rules of origins system. The target audience will be government officials in charge of rules of origins in APEC member economies. Participants of the Workshop will be international and local experts, including customs and trade officials as well as business representatives. Travel-eligible economies will be encouraged to send to the Workshop two officials per economy. Additional participants and participants from developed economies would be encouraged to attend this Workshop on a self-funded basis. |
| Relevance | The project proposal directly corresponds to the priorities set by APEC Leaders in the recent 17th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM) in Singapore. The Leaders’ direction to promote the use of high-quality FTAs/RTAs aims to cut compliance costs for businesses, thus APEC launched a Pathfinder Initiative on Self-Certification of Origin. Self-certification of origin is a simplified declaration process which allows importers to claim preferential treatment by certifying a product’s economy of origin based on actual knowledge of the production process or reliance on certification by the producer or exporter. Self-certification greatly reduces the administrative burden of trading for APEC-based businesses, including small and medium-sized businesses, and enables them to better take advantage of preferential tariff rates offered under FTA arrangements. This in turn supports APEC’s Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment. To support effective implementation and the pathfinder’s success, Ministers instructed officials to develop a capacity building programme by MRT 2010. At MRT Ministers endorsed the Self-Certification Pathfinder Capacity Building programme, comprising of least four workshops to be hosted by economies committed to joining the pathfinder (Brunei Darussalem, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam). Each workshop will provide training to the regulators, customs officials, policy makers and business people for implementation of self-certification in the host economy. They are designed to familiarize the customs officials, policy makers and regulators with the steps required for successful implementation of self-certification in individual economies. Each workshop will cater to the particular needs of the host economy, however officials from around the APEC region are also invited to attend as each workshop will also provide economies with an opportunity to better understand the processes involved with implementation of self-certification. |
| Objectives | The project is under the capacity building framework for APEC member economies in harmonizing rules of origins. It will contribute to facilitating further participation of member economies in the APEC Self-Certification Pathfinder by: · Enhancing the awareness of APEC member economies about the importance of the process of self-certification of origin by promoting a stronger understanding among customs officials, regulators and business of what self-certification is and how it works; · Sharing experiences in applying self-certification in different member economies; · Addressing issues that need to be addressed by members when implementing an effective self-certification system such as rule making and other logistics issues; · Learning experiences from other APEC members in joining the APEC Pathfinder. The Viet Nam’s Workshop benefits APEC members in the following ways: - The workshop will cater to the particular needs of the host economy. It is assumed that each and every developing member economy needs to address the same technical issues when considering to join the Self-Certification Pathfinder. Therefore, the agenda for this workshop may duplicate that of the other 4 workshops in order to address basic concerns and provide basic knowledge that required by economies wishing to implement self-certification system. Domestic participants benefit from raising awareness and enhancing knowledge about the advantages of a self-certification regime, thus can be in a more favourable condition to persuade their leaders to join the Pathfinder in the time to come. However, officials from around the APEC region are also invited to attend because each workshop will also provide other economies with an opportunity to better understand the processes involved during the implementation of self-certification. Every economy when initiating a self-certification process will need to address some basic and common concerns over their hard and soft capacity in order to carry out this process sussessfully. These issues include legal framework, infrastructure facilities and qualified human resources. The agenda of the 3 recent workshops and the incoming 4th one show that all the 4 economies have the need to enhance their understanding about quite similar issues. Therefore, eventhough in-country workshop is dessigned to attract more local participants thanks to their good location, APEC can make the most of the workshop if participants of other developing economies will also be invited. There might be no futher opportunity for other developing economies to host in-country workshops of this kind, so the participation of international participants help to ensure that the Project benefits as many economies as possible. - Since this is the last workshop in the series of capacity building workshops on self-certification, part of the workshop will be reserved for wrap up of progresses achieved after the 3 workshops in Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei. The wrap-up will base on comments received from participants at this workshops and from evaluation reports produced at the other 3 workshops. The PO of this Project will work with the PO of the previous 3 workshops to get their views on the efficiency of their in-country workshops through knowing how the workshop contributes to raise the awareness of each economy’s agencies about self-certification and understand the level of readiness at home to join the Pathfinder. This is not likely that the 4 POs meet in person, specifically at the Hanoi Workshop, therefore, information exchange and close communication among the 4 POs should be conducted. The Vietnamese PO will take the lead in communicating with other 3 POs to seek their assessment of their in-country workshops, what they have learnt from the workshops and the influence that workshop might have on their relevant stakeholders. - There might be a concern that participants can not make good contribution to the wrap-up exercise if they are not participants of the previous workshops. The POs think that this concern is not significant because of the fact that many issues in the agenda of the 4 workshops are common and knowledge gained from the Hanoi workshop will be quite similar to that gained from the other workshops, therefore, participants can make contribution through giving comments on whether the knowledge they gain from the workshop meet their expectations before the workshop and what recommendations they want to make to further this capacity program. - The afternoon of the second day workshop will be reserved for the wrap-up exercise. |
| Alignment | Trade facilitation is one important components under APEC’s agenda on regional economic integration. APEC is implementing the Pathfinder on Self-Certification of Origins, which aims to facilitate trade in the region. The Project will help facilitate the participation of member economies in the Pathfinder, which is one of important items in the CTI’s agenda. |
| TILF/ASF Justification | The Project is under the capacity building framework for APEC member economies in harmonizing rules of origins. It will contribute to facilitating further participation of member economies in the APEC Self-Certification Pathfinder through enhancing their awareness about the advantages of self-certification system. Awaress-raising is very much important, not only for public sector, but also for private sector. Business community needs to enhance their understanding about the benefits they will get if a self-certification system is applied in their country, then will find the motivation to urge their governments to work towards such as system. This capacity building workshop, therefore, is a good opportunity for both policy makers and business representatives. Self-certification has become an important issue in some RTAs/FTA under APEC framework that APEC members have been engaging in, including Trans Pacific Strategic Partnership Agreement (TPP). Therefore, capacity building is very much important for APEC members. |
| Beneficiaries and Outputs | The most direct beneficiaries are the participants of the Workshop. The Workshop target customs officers in APEC member economies who are dealing with custom clearance and policy makers who are in charge of rule making relating to rules of origins. As APEC is working towards harmonization of rules of origin and application of self-certification, the Workshop will equip them with useful knowledge on these topics. Apart from it, business people also benefit from the Workshop as they will gain awareness of self-certification systems and how they work in order to take the advantage of more simplified certification systems. To ensure that Workshop will benefit as many individuals as possible, the workshop’s outcomes will be uploaded to the APEC website. This is very useful to enhance understanding of both government officials as wells as business people on the APEC’s works on self-certification. |
| Dissemination | The target audience will be government officials in a position to introduce and implement changes to certification systems in their economies (regulators/administrators involved in CO issuance and representatives from legislative branch) and private sector representatives. Hard copies as well as electronic copies of all workshop’s documents will be provided to APEC participants. All these documents will also be uploaded to the APEC website for wider use. The report of the Workshop will be submitted to CTI and SCCP for futher follow-up since a number of participants of the workshop will be customs officers. The APEC and ABAC-associated, as well as other Vietnamese industry, websites could be used to disseminate information. However, since APEC owns the copyrights of the project’s outputs, the posting of materials on other websites should be by hyperlinks to APEC website. |
| Gender | Women will be directly and actively involved in the project. Project proponents of these workshops include women. The organizers will encourage women to be involved during the preparatory stage and actual activity. Invitations will be sent out and disseminated through the GFPN/WLN to ensure that women from APEC economies will be encouraged to participate with due consideration of gender concerns. In addition, the project proponents will ensure that the evaluation forms to be distributed at the end of the workshop will include information on gender for disaggregation of data for project assessment and will help in evaluation of specific responses of women and men. Results/outcomes of the workshops in relation to the subject will also be disseminated through GFPN/WLM and women’s business networks. Female managers of APEC enterprises can benefit from the project as they gain awareness about the convenience and usefulness of a self-certification and they therefore can raise voice to support the application of self-certification in their economies. The application of self-certification system in one economy will help reduce burden for customs officers, including female officers, which represent an important workforce in the case of Viet Nam. |
| Work Plan | Under the Project, a 2 day Workshop on Self – Certification will be held in Ha Noi, Viet Nam tentatively in June 2011. The 1st day of the Workshop will be reserved for general introduction about what self-certification is, how it works and what requirements will be for member economies when adopting this regime. Participants will also hear presentations on the experiences of Pathfinder’s economies on how the self-certification systems work in their economies. On the second day, participants will be divided into several groups to discuss issues, which include challenges member economies are facing with if they are to adopt self-certification. Also, since this is the last in-country workshop among a series of capacity building workshops on self-certification, the Workshop in Ha Noi will provide participants with an opportunity to review the capacity building exercise in this area to date and assessing the interests of members in the next steps for self-certification. Accordingly, an evaluation report of the workshop will be issued, which presents the proceedings of the workshop, participants’ comments on the overall outcomes of the workshop and recommendations on further capacity building needs as next step on self-certification. The workshop will provide an overview of the following topics: a) Introduction to self-certification, including an overview of self-certification models and APEC Self-Certification Pathfinder Operating Guidelines;b) Advantages and difficulties experienced by businesses in utilising self-certification regimes; c) Legal and institutional mechanisms and facilities to support a self-certification regime d) Experience sharing by Pathfinder’s economies on the application of self-certifications systems (verification and audit techniques; risk management strategies, etc...) e) Presentations on law and regulations on self-certification applied in some APEC members f) Consideration on how self-certification might be implemented into the Vietnamese system and what are possible barriers g) Wrap up on capacity building as the next step Some of the topics overlap with that of the previous workshops but the project proponent thinks that it is necessary and useful to touch upon these very useful knowledge since not all participants are familiar with self-certification issues. In order to ensure the participation of different participants at the workshop, each contact point of APEC economies will be encouraged to go through a serious nomination process, so that their nominees will not be the one, who has already participated in the previous workshops. |
| Risks | One of the risks is ensuring the selection of good speakers in order to make the most of the workshop. The Organizers will work with the organizers of the previous workshops to get recommendations of potential speakers. The Organizers will also work with member of the Pathfinders to find speakers for the workshop as experience sharing is also the aim of the workshop. Other risk is the difficulty in selecting right participants. To address this risk, the organizers will send out invitation to different fora in APEC, including CTI, MAG and SCSP to ensure that information about the workshop reach right people. The criteria to select participants is that participants should either be policy makers for rules of origin related laws and regulations or customs officers, who directly involve in rule of origins examination process. However, taking into account that customs people very much involve in self-certification programs, member economies are encouraged to send their customs representatives to the workhop. For the host economy, key participants will be customs officers, apart from policy makers and business representatives. |
| Monitoring and Evaluation | At the end of the workshop, an evaluation form will be circulated to all participants to comment on the outcomes of the workshop. The organizing committee will compile all comments and reflect them into the final report, which will be submitted to CTI for consideration |
| Linkages | Since self-certifiction involve both policy makers and customs officers, the organizers will send invitation to CTI, MAG and SCCP, so that to ensure that the workshop will benefit right people. The organizers will also consider to invite speakers from ASEAN to share with paticipants ASEAN’s views on implementing ASEAN self-certification scheme. APEC is the best source of funding for this project because APEC is implementing the Pathfinder on Self-Certification and has been providing capacity building for its members during their participation in the Pathfinder. Since members of the APEC Pathfinder come from both developed and developing economies, APEC provides a good avenue for its members to share experiences among each others. With regard to how the Project builds upon previous projects: this workshop is a follow-up to the previous workshops on self-certification. Recently, at the Workshop held in the Philippines, several participants raised comment about the need for a study or review of existing laws and regulations related to self-certification in member economies. Therefore, this Workshop will give chance for members to hear different presentations on laws and regulations on self-certification, which are being applied in APEC member economies. |
| Sustainability | The knowledge gained from the workshop such as legal and institutional mechanisms and facilities required to support a self-certification regime will be very useful for participants to report to their supervisors back home in order to prepare for the application of self-certification in their economies. For APEC ASEAN members, the project is especially useful as ASEAN has a plan to fullfil the self-certification system by 2012. Knowledge disseminating and experience sharing on this topic is very important to ASEAN members. One indicator to measure the sustainability of the workshop is that after the 4 in-country workshops, has any other member economy signaled interest to join the Pathfinder? This is not easy to provide “yes” or “no” answer since capacity building is a process. However, a workshop of that kind will definitely benefit the host economy by raising awareness on and attention to self-certification process by their relevant agencies. ASEAN is now implementing its Self-Certification Scheme and has the plan to complete it by 2012, therefore this workshop is a timely response to capacity building needs of developing members in ASEAN. Possible next step after the project is further study on laws and regulations on self-certification in APEC members and further experience sharing among Pathfinder members on problems they encounter during the implementation, so that other members can be well prepared for their future participation in the Pathfinder. |
| Project Overseers | Other Project Overseers: Mr. Do Thanh Hong Deputy Director General of the Multilateral Trade Policy Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade of Viet Nam Tel: 84-4-22205522 Fax: 84-4-22202525 email: hongdth@moit.gov.vn |
| Cost Efficiency | This workshop is integral component of the APEC Self-Certification of Origin Pathfinder Capacity Building Programme. This is the last one among a series of capacity workshop on self-certification. It provides APEC member economies with an opportunity to wrap-up progresses accumulated so far and indentify further capacity building needs for the next phase. With knowledge and experience gained from the workshop, other APEC economies may eventually volunteer to become members of the Pathfinder on Self-Certification of Origin. In order to ensure cost efficiency, the majority of APEC funding will be used for covering the costs of the travel, honorarium, per diem of experts and travel eligible participants. A small proportion is used for hosting costs. The host economy will make partial contribution to cover costs of short-term staff, secretariat, communication, photocopy, interpreter and part of costs relating to equipment. |
| Drawdown Timetable | Not Applicable |
| Direct Labour | Not Applicable |
| Waivers | This project requires advance payments and waivers from the normal APEC financial rules to support and meet financial commitments of the parties involved. Details of the waivers and justifications are as follows: Advance payment - Advance payment for airfares, accommodation and per diem for speakers from APEC member economies; - Waiver is sought to fund the travel, per diem and accommodation for government officials from travel eligible economies. Advance payment is also required for these participants to facilitate their participation; - Waiver is sought to commission experts from non-APEC members and international organizations (if any) in workshop’s activities; waiver for the advance payment of airfare, accommodation and per diem for these experts; - Waiver is sought to fund for interpretation costs since many participants are local. |
| Are there any supporting document attached? | No |