CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – The St. Lucia government Friday said the island had completed a Time Release Study (TRS) that formed part of the endeavors to improve its trading environment as well as to meet its international obligations under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade Facilitation (WTO TFA).
The agreement, specifically Article 7.6, encourages WTO member states to measure and publish their average release time of goods periodically and consistently, using tools such as the Time Release Study of the World Customs Organization (WCO).
The government said that the TRS was conducted at the Castries Seaport in 2022, the island’s main commercial port representing over 80 percent of the volume of importation and exportation.
“The TRS undertaken at the Castries Seaport focused its attention on importing all commodities, except personal effects importation, non-commercial petroleum products, and ozone depletion linked commodities. In terms of the processes measured, the TRS concentrated its efforts on the Customs and Excise Department (CED) and St. Lucia Air and Sea Port Authority (SLASPA),” according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Commerce here.
It said that the TRS found that the average time from arrival to release from SLASPA for sea cargo is approximately ten days and 15 hours and 45 minutes and that from the submission of the Customs declaration to the actual release of the shipment from SLASPA is four days and seven hours and 50 minutes.
In addition, paying all duties and fees to release physically inspected goods from Customs is under 24 hours.
The statement said that besides providing the international and national trading community with the average clearance times at the Port of Castries, the TRS also enabled St. Lucia to undertake initial process mapping related to the Customs and Port clearance processes.
“This process mapping will prove useful for future business process optimization and digitization efforts such as the establishment of the planned St.Lucia National Single Window Platform,” the statement said, adding that based on the findings of the TRS, the stakeholders involved in the clearance of goods’ process will turn their attention to the implementation of several prioritized TRS recommendations.
These include fast-tracking the roll-out of electronic payment, pre-arrival processing, and establishing the National Single Window Platform, introducing and enhancing the roll-out of trade predictability and risk-based facilities such as advance rulings, post-clearance audit, and authorized operators program.
The authorities will also consider expanding working days at the Port of Castries to at least six days and also consider 24 hours operations, at least for part of the working week, as well as enhancing trade-related border agency cooperation and public-private partnership.
The initiative here was supported by experts mobilized by the Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility, which is co-funded by the European Union (EU), the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS) under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the British Council.
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