Next week in Costa Rica the British Embassies in the Central America region are joining together to host a conference on tackling contraband. Experts and authorities from all over the region (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Belize, Nicaragua and of course, Costa Rica) will meet to discuss this fundamentally cross-border issue. In the conversations I have had about this in Guatemala and Honduras it seems to me that stemming the flow of contraband is a win-win. It tackles corruption and criminality which often has links to organised crime. It increases the flow of legal trade which boosts custom revenues for government and thereby its ability to provide services. It protects the consumer from possibly harmful counterfeited or tampered products and from being unwitting financial supporters of criminal networks.
It prevents companies from suffering unnecessary losses which can have implications for retention of workforces. I recently met one of the Guatemalan delegates who has achieved a lot working closely with all the different authorities such as customs, interior ministry and police, as well as private sector companies and trade organisations. In a successful operation they managed to break up a ring of contraband which had caused estimated losses to the country of millions of Quetzales in tax revenue.
I don’t want to oversimplify a complicated issue but I think this regional forum will contribute to the cross border cooperation needed to make a difference in reducing contraband. I hope it means we will hear more success stories which support legal trade in 2014.