CETA to take effect on September 21

The provisional application of the free trade agreement CETA between EU and Canada will come into force on September 21, the Finance Ministry said. Starting from Thursday, with the exception of a few agricultural goods, the CETA will essentially eliminate the customs duties on all products, either immediately upon implementation of the agreement, or through a tariff phase-out. To apply for preferential tariffs for imported goods they need to be directly imported (or exported) and have evidence of their preferential origin. “In the case of EU exporters, a declaration of origin may be made by any exporter but only for consignments whose value does not exceed €6,000. In the event that the value of the consignment exceeds that amount, the declaration can only be made by an exporter registered in REX system,” the ministry said. As a result, entrepreneurs who intend to export products to Canada under the CETA contract should register in the REX registered exporters database. Trade between the two sides amounts to more than €60 billion a year, and the EU expects CETA to boost this by 20 percent by removing almost all tariffs.