ECOWAS launches electronic certificate of preferential origin

The ECOWAS Commission has officially launched this week an electronic Certificate of Origin (eCO) as part of its efforts to facilitate trade in the region and promote better integration among the Community's member States.

With the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTA), the determination of origin of goods becomes critical, because only goods originating from the countries participating to such agreements are eligible for tariff preferences (reduced or zero duty). The certificate of origin acts like a passport for goods that is a precondition for accessing to preferential customs duties rates when imported in a country which is member of the same FTA. In West Africa, the process relating to the application request for certificate of origin is manual and particularly cumbersome. Moreover, customs administrations spend long time to verify the authenticity of certificates of origin, which erodes confidence in the proof of origin and increases cases of falsification. The certificate of origin therefore becomes an impediment to the free movement of goods and trade facilitation within the ECOWAS Subregion. The implementation of an electronic certificate aims to address these challenges and ultimately enhance intra-regional trade among ECOWAS Member States, promoting regional integration.

The e-certificate of origin is expected to have a significant and positive impact on the cross-border movement of goods in the ECOWAS region. The automation process covers the submission of the CO application, the digital signature, and its end-to-end transmission (from the Customs office in the exporting country to the one in the importing country). This transmission is done through a secure and dedicated system aimsm so to enhance intra-community trade and boost the economic competitiveness of Member States. The end-to-end digitalization in the issuance of certificates of (preferential) origin eliminates human intervention and drastically reduces fraud, engendering transparency and confidence in the certificate of origin regime.

Similar projects of dematerialization of certificates of origin have been launched by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), but their e-COs are not still fullly operational. During the first semester of this year also the AfCFTA Secretariat started consultations for the development of an AfCFTA electronic certificate of origin. The project aims at interconnecting customs administrations and other designated authorities of the AfCFTA State Parties in a network that will allow them to directly exchange these certificates, without any intermediation by traders, as it happens with the paper-based ones. However, discussions are still ongoing, and so far the continental certificate of origin has not been adopted yet.