A Preferential Certificate of Origin (PCoO) is a document that certifies that goods in a particular shipment qualify for preferential tariff treatment under a specific Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
The document is issued by a government agency in the exporting country, such as a chamber of commerce. It is sent by an exporter or authorised representative (e.g. freight forwarder).
The receiver of the document is usually the importer and the Customs authority of the importer country.
The overall framework is provided by the WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin, and the revised Kyoto Convention on Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures. Every FTA has its own legal framework, the text/layout of the preferential CoO is described in the relevant FTA.
More than 15 million a year
Most preferential CoOs have a similar layout.
The layout of a PCoO is mostly similar, and there are no major differences between the definitions of different key data elements.
In some countries, electronic CoO exchanges are enabled by National Single Window services.
A CoO is connected to a shipment, therefore information about the exporter and description of the goods has to be the same as that used in other documents.
Digitalisation must be allowed in the text of the FTA, which may be a long process.
Framing the problem: The following challenges should be taken into consideration regarding the digitalisation of preferential CoO.
The main challenge will be the legal aspect. Many older FTAs do not have a provision to work with digital CoOs. If this legal aspect is not solved between contracting countries within an FTA, it is not an option to start the development of an e-CoO system.