| Supplier Solicitation Issues and Challenges | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Trade agreement regulations are lengthy and complex, often covering hundreds or even thousands of products that have preferential treatment negotiated. To know whether a product may be eligible, importers must decide which FTAs apply and then query their suppliers to obtain information on product origin according to the rules set by the FTA.
The qualifying minimums for local materials and transformations vary by country and by free trade agreement. Only goods that meet these minimum requirements are entitled to the special duty treatment that FTAs offer. |
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| Challenges for importers include: | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ▪ | Determining which FTAs to target for a given product | |||||||||||||||||||
| ▪ | Managing the solicitation of suppliers to determine the origin of their products | |||||||||||||||||||
| ▪ | Collecting and validating supplier certificates for products under FTAs of interest | |||||||||||||||||||
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How Amber Road Can Help When a product is entered into the Global Product Master (GPM), our solutions perform an initial analysis to determine which free trade agreements may apply. Importers can quickly decide which agreements to pursue. FTA identification is powered by our Global Knowledge®database of worldwide trade content. Global Knowledge® contains the rules of origin, product classifications, duties, and taxes for all the major preferential trade programs. Powerful search and query features in the campaign manager make it possible for importers to send mass or targeted requests to suppliers for origin information. Campaigns can be structured to target certain trade agreements, groups of products, or individual items. Amber Road's FTA solutions execute supplier solicitation campaigns by sending email requests directly from the application to suppliers. Depending on the target FTA(s), the supplier will see data entry fields specific to the target agreement(s). Typically, this is the information required on the certificate of origin to support the preferential claim. The campaign manager is scalable and supports multiple trade agreements. A content plugin for each target FTA contains the claim details, documents, and rules of origin for each trade agreement. Once the framework is in place, additional plugins can be added seamlessly. Suppliers can enter information directly into the system using a secure portal. Depending on the number of items being solicited, they can do this manually or by uploading an Excel spreadsheet. All data undergoes validation testing to ensure accuracy and completeness. When the response has been submitted, the importer's compliance staff can review the data before accepting it. This added level of verification is important for audit purposes. A threaded discussion feature also allows either party to submit questions and answers, request clarifications, or provide additional input before the origin information is finalized. This dialog also becomes part of the audit trail. The campaign manager and supplier portal also make it possible to see open campaigns and work queue items in a dashboard. Suppliers and importers can keep the solicitation and response process flowing efficiently between them. |
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