Designated Processing Areas (Amendment) Act 2025 (No. 3 of 2025).

This Act makes amendments in the definitions of the approved activity, company, senior management, technical staff, and inserts the definitions of Comptroller, customs duty, excise duty, foreign company, import duty, integrally connected, national priority, non-controlled item, research and development, revenue replacement duty and stamp duties in Section 2 of the principal Act. The principal objectives of the Designated Processing Areas Committee in Section 4 of the principal Act is amended, as follows: the facilitation of trade and the stimulation of sustainable economic development, productivity, investment, employment, support for enterprises that produce goods and services for the domestic and global markets and satisfy the rule of origin as defined under the Treaty of Chaguaramas Establishing the Caribbean Community, and production according to national standards.
This Act amends Section 5 of the principal Act by adding new duties and functions to the Designated Processing Areas Committee, and amending subsection (3) as regards its power to grant to a company or business that is not an approved company, permission to operate within a Designated Processing Area. It also makes amendments in Section 8 regarding the declaration of a sector to be a national priority sector; section 9 as regards the procedures of application for and renewal or variation of the Designated Processing Area status; Section 10 relating to the eligibility for the Designated Processing Area status; Section 11 on the obligations of an approved company; Section 12 on the obligations of a DPA Developer; Section 15 regarding the apllication of an approved company to the Designated Processing Areas Committee to vary the information contained in the Certificate of Compliance; Section 16 as regards the revise of the Certificate of Designation in accordance with any variation; Section 17 as regards the revise of the Operations Contract in accordance with any variation; Section 18 relating to the benefits granted by the Designated Processing Areas Committee include exemption from customs and excise duties and taxes on equipment for renewable energy; and inserts new subsections to Section 31 of the principal Act as regards the power of the Designated Processing Areas Committee to make regulations for prescribing procedures for disposal, exportation or donation of non-controlled items; or prescribing standards, procedures or provisions for the administration of approved companies that conduct the activities within the aquaculture sector.