On 28 March 2023, the Minister of Finance introduced Budget 2023, aptly titled a “Made-in-Canada Plan.” A key trade-related theme resonates throughout the Budget: futureproofing the Canadian economy to respond to realignment of global trade patterns. Budget 2023 highlights new policy based initiatives and legislative amendments to address, such as: the global race to net-zero economies and “industries of tomorrow”; “friendshoring” economies to limit dependence on authoritarian regimes for critical goods; domestic supply chain weaknesses; forced labor in Canadian supply chains; and circumvention of economic sanctions.
The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) has issued new announcements to respond to new businesses and future investment trends and to attract investors to invest in Thailand. The BOI aims to boost innovation, competitiveness, and inclusivity as well as sustainable development of Thailand’s economy in accordance with the current National Economic and Social Development Plan and the country’s development policies.
We’re pleased to present the tenth edition of Ukrainian Laws in Wartime: Guide for International and Domestic Businesses, a brief overview of the key features of wartime legislation.
The European Commission previously announced plans to include binding valuation information decisions in its customs legislation. The Commission has published the draft Delegated Regulation and obtained feedback from a public consultation, which ended on 18 January 2023. The Commission describes this move as the completion of an already well-established legal and operational framework for issuing decisions relating to binding tariff classification information and binding origin information.
On 15 February 2023, the World Customs Organization hosted a Symposium on E-Commerce and Customs Valuation. Several key challenges were identified: the fragmentation in the system due to data overload from low level shipments; the consequent shortfalls within data systems and processing; and compliance and enforcement challenges. The sessions provided a high level overview from the WCO and World Trade Organization of the current scope of challenges and questions to consider, and featured substantive presentations on the challenges faced by national Customs Authorities with input from the private sector in navigating the rapidly growing cross-border e-commerce trade.
The European Union actively uses anti-dumping and anti-subsidy (or countervailing duty) investigations to protect the EU industry. Imports from Indonesia are a prime target for these investigations. Since 2003, imports from Indonesia were targeted in 15 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, and four of these investigations were initiated in the last three years.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled Blog Series: Sanctions Enforcement Around the G7 – the French Perspective on 28 March 2023. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
The Spanish Customs Authorities have released new guidelines on provisional customs values and simplified declarations. The aim is to clarify the utilization of simplified declarations foreseen in Article 166 of the UCC due to the high number of queries from operators.
On 17 February 2023, and pursuant to its obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico’s Ministry of Economy published in the Federal Official Gazette the much-anticipated Administrative regulation that sets forth the goods which importation is subject to regulation by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (Forced Labor Regulation), which prohibits the importation of goods produced with forced labor. Once Mexico’s Forced Labor Regulation becomes effective on 18 May 2023, all three members of the USMCA trade block, Mexico, Canada, and the United States, will have prohibitions and restrictions on the importation of goods made with forced labor.
The Ministry of Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade issued Resolution No. 001-20231 whereby it adds 64 tariff codes to Appendix I of the Decree No. 4,757 of 29 December 2022, establishing exemptions from the payment of value-added tax and import charges on imports of several goods.