Customs Tariff and Procedures Expert · Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) · 2026 · Sixty-six countries, with focus on Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines and Tanzania
The challenge
Micronutrient premix, the vitamin and mineral blend added to staple foods in large-scale fortification programmes, attracts customs duties, import taxes and regulatory charges that vary widely between countries and are rarely visible to the organisations funding and running those programmes. GAIN needed a reliable, measure-level baseline of that fiscal burden across its programme countries, on which advocacy for tariff relief and better procedures could be built, and a view of how the new HS 2028 subheading 2106.20 for premix would change the picture.
Our role
Leading the design and development of the Premix Taxes and Tariffs Index as customs tariff and procedures expert, working directly with GAIN’s Premix Facility.
What we did
Classification analysis of premix under HS heading 21.06 and its national subdivisions in each country; verification of MFN duty rates, import VAT, excise and regulatory charges against primary tariff and legal sources; assessment of the import-stage fiscal burden as a whole rather than the headline duty rate alone; construction of a master database and a set of detailed country profiles; and mapping of the transition from current national codes to the HS 2028 subheading.
What was delivered
A sixty-six country, measure-level baseline of the duties, taxes and charges applying to premix, delivered as a master database with country profiles and a transition map to HS 2028, giving GAIN and its partners an evidenced basis for engaging governments on the cost of fortification inputs.
