The Permanent Secretariat of the Latin America and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) and the Institute for Promotion of Investments and Exports (Uruguay XXI) of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay are pleased to announce the conduction of the “VII Latin American and Caribbean Regional Meeting on Foreign Trade Single Windows: Single Windows as Tools for Trade Facilitation and Commercial Integration”, to be held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 15 and 16 October 2015.

The VI Meeting, held in Port of Spain on 30 and 31 October 2014, welcomed Uruguay’s request to provide the venue for the VII Regional Meeting on Foreign Trade Single Windows. Additionally, attending delegations made a recommendation for SELA, in synergy with other relevant agencies and related entities, to continue with the efforts started in 2010 with the First Latin American and Caribbean Regional Meeting on Foreign Trade Single Windows, conducted jointly with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism of Colombia.

Since then, SELA has systematically promoted these annual regional meetings with the purpose of fostering coordination processes to contribute to digital inclusion within the framework of regional integration, as well as a permanent and proactive debate on relevant issues relate to Single Windows, covering regulatory, technical, technological and governance areas, with a view to encouraging governments in the region to commit themselves to designing public policies and national instruments to favour regional efforts aimed at consolidating Single Windows throughout Latin America and the Caribbean as part of e-Commerce and e-Governance strategies.

The VII Latin American and Caribbean Regional Meeting on Foreign Trade Single Windows will be focused, as indicated in its title, on reviewing the strategic role of Single Windows within the context of the recent WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation and the mechanisms for trade integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, which becomes more relevant when considering that by properly developing these tools, they can generate favourable conditions for making strides with intra-regional trade as a crucial instance to achieve higher levels of productivity and competitiveness in individual countries and in Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole.

As a complement, a review will be made of the progress with the Project on Single Windows Interoperability (SWI), of UN/CEFACT, which intends to issue a Recommendation in this connection later this year. Also, an analysis will be carried out on the specific case of the Business-to-Government (B2G) relationship involved in the interoperability between Foreign Trade Single Windows and the Port Single Windows (Port Community Systems); and, of course, debates will be conducted, and the achievements of SWs in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past year will be disseminated.