Ecuador applies safeguards to Colombia and Peru since today, according to the Comex

Since today, the Ecuadorian government will implement an exchange safeguard or ad valorem customs duty, which is equivalent to 7% for products originated in Peru and 21% for the ones coming from Colombia.

The Committee of Foreign Trade (Comex) took that resolution last December 29. The Comex says that the plenary of that entity analyzed the emergency request from Ecuador to the General Secretariat of the Andean Community (CAN for its Spanish acronym) on December 24, 2014, “which demonstrates the existence of an alteration of the competition conditions equivalent to 21% for the Colombian peso and 7% for the Peruvian sol,” indicated in Section 98 of the Cartagena Agreement, which states that if a currency devaluation is made by one of the member countries of the CAN, it alters the the normal conditions of competition, the country that considers itself aggrieved may bring the case to the General Secretariat, which shall act briefly and summarily.

The Comex said that the measure will have emergent and temporal character and will be applied for goods whose customs declarations are submitted from January 5, 2015.