Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Adopts Declaration on Pre-Arrival Processing

Ecuador on Aug. 1 hosted the first in-person meeting of trade ministers of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, at which Western Hemisphere countries adopted a “Declaration on Good Practices for Pre-Arrival Processing” and made other trade commitments.

Trade ministers from Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, the U.S. and Uruguay also noted in the joint statement the first meeting of the Experts Dialogue on Trade Facilitation, held July 24-25. The meeting focused on pre-arrival processing, border agency cooperation and the “single window” concept.

In the statement, they said they also directed the Partnership’s Council for Trade and Competitiveness to identify digitalization improvements that could be made to customs processes and host a public-private workshop on regional value and supply chains for the medical device sector.

The council also will share the inclusive trade inventories of every country’s program directed at supporting trade-involved small and medium-sized businesses so that partner countries can “discuss next steps for sharing information from the inventory with the public, the statement said. It said the council likewise will develop a program by 2025 to share partner countries’ regulatory agendas for “key sectors” to support the implementation of the 2022 Summit of the Americas “Declaration on Good Regulatory Practices.”

And the ministers sought compilation of a compendium of the recommendations and discussions of the Experts Dialogue on Trade Facilitation. By Nov. 1, the committee should have identified the 2025 Experts Dialogue’s focus areas, they said.

Finally, they called for conventions on climate actions and labor rights by Nov. 1.