The  United States Agency for International Development (USAID)  and regional partners  invested US$18.8 million in a regional customs project .

This seeks to promote the  economic integration  of the so-called countries of the northern triangle of Central America, as revealed by  SEAL, Specialized Customs and Logistics Services. 

The beneficiary countries are  Guatemala ,  Honduras  and  El Salvador, which are promoting the Regional Trade Facilitation and Border Management  project  , whose purpose is  to reduce import prices and increase exports .

More than 1,400 companies in the  Northern Triangle  have received technical assistance for six years to improve the time and costs of their border procedures.

It was reported that  in El Salvador more than 150 businessmen and 280 government officials were trained to speed up the registration processes for pharmaceutical products and drugstores.

The project promoted  economic integration  and compliance with trade facilitation agreements established with the  World Trade Organization (WTO)  and focused on customs union, maintaining security and border crossing control.

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Participating companies reduced the time  and costs required to import goods at borders, conduct physical inspections at border posts, and the number of physical documents they had to submit to customs by 39% to 50%.

In addition,  the time taken to perform health procedures was reduced by 74% .

The  United States Ambassador to El Salvador,  William Duncan , said that the project’s efforts are crucial to strengthening economic integrity and commercial management processes  in the countries that make up the so-called Northern Triangle.

For its part, the Ministry of Economy of that country said that “we continue working on the execution of the  National Strategy for Trade Facilitation , in support of Phase 3 of the Economic Plan, to expedite the exchange of goods and attract more  investments .”