Govt moves to eliminate trade barriers
Isaac Pinielo | Friday October 2, 2015 11:24
Through a National Enquiry Point (NEP), which was launched in Gaborone this week, the Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) will offer the services.
The NEP is a requirement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) under the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement. Explaining the functions of the enquiry point, BOBS information services manager, Keakantse Chabo said the NEP is crucial to reducing the time and cost of trade, since it offers a single contact point to which requests for information can be made.
“Without an NEP, gathering required information can be cumbersome and even impossible, hindering trade, private sector involvement and economic growth,” Chabo said.
She explained that NEP will handle information on technical regulations and standards adopted or proposed to be adopted and conformity assessment procedures adopted or proposed to be adopted.
She added that the NEP uses the resources available in the library to answer enquiries from exporters and importers in Botswana and abroad.
Officially launching the NEP, the minister of Trade and Industry, Vincent Seretse stated that Botswana became a member of the WTO in 1995 and as such the country is obliged to implement the requirements of the TBT agreement. “The NEP will serve as a one-stop-shop where the stakeholders, in particular, the industry will access information on regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures implemented in the export market,” he reiterated.
The minister also noted that the members of the WTO would also be guided on the applicable requirements for doing business in Botswana. He said the local industry is challenged with accessing information relating to the product quality requirements of the export markets.
“Therefore, the importance of this office (NEP) cannot be overemphasised as it will provide crucial information needed to facilitate trade,” said Seretse.
He further noted that the establishment of the NEP is one of the strategies that the ministry is putting in place to facilitate ease of doing business, adding that it is envisaged that in the long run time and cost of trade will be reduced.
USA ambassador to Botswana, Earl Miller said removing trade barriers is an important part of the USAID Trade Hub work in the SADC region.
“When resources like the NEP help eliminate obstacles in trade flows, they ease the movement of commodities, which keep costs reasonable for consumers and improve food security for Botswana’s population,” he said.
To assist Botswana in establishing the NEP, Miller said USAID has been working for over a year with BOBS on various steps to establish and launch it.
He noted that in April this year, USAID sponsored three designated NEP officials from BOBS for a one-week benchmarking visit to Nairobi, Kenya to understand the functions of an enquiry point at the Kenya Bureau of Standards. USAID also helped with infrastructure by purchasing essential IT equipment and office furniture. In addition, he said USAID and BOBS conducted training workshops on good standardisation practice and referencing standards in technical regulations in June. The USAID also hosted a workshop last month on the topic of establishing a WTO TBT National Consultative Committee for Botswana. Miller believes that the information shared in that workshop would help Botswana improve the effectiveness of its NEP and notification authorities in line with the WTO’s technical barriers to trade agreement.
Within the last year, the Southern Africa Trade Hub opened or re-launched NEPs in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia.