In this issue the SITPRO Helpdesk examines the issue of requests for NAFTA certificates.
Q. My customer in the USA has asked me to supply a NAFTA certificate for the goods I am exporting to them from the UK. I am a little confused as this appears to be a US document. Please can you advise.
A. NAFTA stands for the North America Free Trade Agreement and the parties to this agreement are the United States, Canada and Mexico. The purpose of a NAFTA certificate of origin is to prove that goods qualify as originating in one or more of the member countries so that they may benefit from preferential tariff treatment when imported into another member country.
If your goods do not qualify as originating in one of the member countries then you cannot provide a NAFTA certificate of origin and your customer, importing goods from the UK, should not be asking you for one. We believe that when this occurs the buyer in the USA is simply asking for a standard set of documents that they routinely request from their customers without tailoring the list to the individual supplier.
On a number of occasions we have received a similar query from exporters who have sent goods to a customer in the USA and those goods are then being sold to another customer in Mexico. The EU has its own preferential trade agreement with Mexico for which an EUR 1 would be raised for qualifying goods, not a NAFTA certificate of origin.
If you need help with a trade procedures query, call the Helpdesk on
020 7215 8150 or email info@sitpro.org.uk 
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Return to SITPRO News: Issue 60, Spring 2007