Trade preference management

Overview

Preferential origin is related to preferential trade agreements signed between the European Union and its commercial partners.

The preferential agreements list all the conditions to be met so that a product can be considered from preferential European origin. Also they explain how traders can benefit from the preferential origin. (See Annex 1 for the complete list of Trade preferential agreements).

If the conditions stated in the agreement are met and if the supplier is able to prove the preferential origin of its goods, then Solvay is allowed to benefit from reduced or nil duty rates when importing it. Parallel to that, when Solvay is the exporter of goods, it must ensure that he provides its customer with the evidence of preferential origin.

Preferential origin is not to be mistaken with manufacturing country and dispatch country. 

Trade preference management has become mostly automated with the implementation of the new GTS tool, whereas it used be mostly manual. The new tool and the new process were implemented only for Rhodia legacy in the EU. 

Steps of the EXPORT process

Authorisations

CTC is responsible for any amendment and renewal of Approved Exporter authorisations. These authorisations allow simplifications in the management of trade preference. For example, it allows to issue preferential invoice statement (see annex 2), for countries accepting it, instead of EUR 1 certificates. And this is also the case of deliveries having value superior to €6000. Moreover these authorisations allow to pre authenticate A.TR certificates. 

Determination of the preferential origin for Finished Products

CTC uses SAP GTS to collect all information needed for GTS to compute the preferential origin, such as:

• Tariff codes for raw materials and final products
• Composition of finished products, via the « BOM », Bill Of Material
• Sourcing of finished products via procurement indicators
• Rule to be applied, uploaded directly in GTS from a file sent by external data provider
• Information related to the preferential origin of raw material. CTC requests Long Term Declarations (LTD) to suppliers together with Purchasing Department and maintain LTD received.

 Once all information has been gathered, CTC launches the preference calculation.

Evidence of preferential origin - at the time of export

When the goods are shipped, GTS checks if the country of destination qualifies for trade preference and if the product is from preferential origin for the particular agreement.

If the 2 conditions are met, the invoice statement is printed on the invoice and the relevant CPC code is used. 

EUR1 and A.TR management

The delivery coordinator (Supply Chain department) requests for EUR1 when explicitly stated in the documentary instructions completed by the commercial assistant. Note: in some cases customs broker handles the request.

The delivery coordinator completes and sends the pre authenticated A.TR in case of shipment to Turkey.

Evidence of preferential origin - Long Term Declaration

A customer can ask Solvay to provide a Long Term Declaration, a legal document in which Solvay certifies that the goods qualify for preferential origin (or not), for all the shipments in a given period, generally 1 year (see also “Procedure Management of Long Term Declaration in GTS”).

The person in charge of LTD within CS EMEA is responsible for issuing the document directly from GTS. The output is based on the result of the preference calculation.

Non drawback clause

The non drawback clause is a part of the preferential agreements (except the ones between the EU and South Africa and South Korea that exclude this rule). This clause prevents cumulating the benefits from preferential origin (for the importer) and from customs regimes with economic impact such as IPR (for the manufacturer and exporter). It means that an export flow post IPR cannot benefit from an invoice statement or EUR1.

At the time of export, GTS checks if the flow qualifies for IPR and if the flow qualifies for trade preference.

If the third country has not signed any preferential agreement with the EU, then the export flow discharges the IPR stock.

If the flow qualifies for trade preference (relevant country and product qualifying), then an invoice statement is printed, and it is possible to issue a LTD for the product.

Remark: « worst case » rule

This rule applies in the determination of the preference and when issuing LTD.

If there is a multi sourcing on a raw material (EU and non EU), then GTS considers that the raw material does not originate from the EU.

If there are several alternative BOM’s to manufacture a finished product (certain leading to a positive result, certain to a negative result), the GTS considers that the finished product does not qualify for preferential origin.

To issue a LTD, GTS considers all the shipments (all the invoices) during the period. If only one shipment doesn’t qualify, then the LTD is negative.

Steps of the IMPORT process

The customs broker is responsible for checking if there is any preferential origin certificate in the original documentation sent by the supplier:

• Invoice statement
• EUR1
• Form A
•  A.TR used within the customs union TR-EU (it doesn’t confirm the preferential agreement, but confirms that the product is in free circulation) 

He is then responsible for using the relevant codes and CPC accordingly and filing the document. He is also responsible to archive documents. 

Annexes

Annex 1: 

List of preferential agreements and accepted evidence of preferential origin

Follow the link below to the EU website 

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/customs/customs_duties/rules_origin/preferential/index_en.htm 

Annex 2: 

Invoice statement 

“THE EXPORTER OF THE PRODUCTS COVERED BY THIS DOCUMENT (CUSTOMS AUTORISATION …) DECLARES THAT, EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE CLEARLY INDICATED THESE PRODUCTS ARE OF EU PREFERENTIAL ORIGIN.”