The OPCE: Honduras Bets on Centralizing Its Foreign Trade Policy

Ekber Matute, Senior Associate at ARIAS Honduras and expert in Litigation, Arbitration and Compliance, presents this article on Honduras's new foreign trade institutional framework and what it means, in practical terms, for companies operating in the country.

On March 4, 2026, President Asfura’s administration approved Executive Decree PCM-006-2026, creating the Presidential Office of Foreign Trade (OPCE), published in the Official Gazette La Gaceta on March 11, 2026 (No. 37,091). This is not a minor adjustment: the OPCE takes over all functions previously held by the Undersecretary of Economic Integration and Foreign Trade, including the General Directorate of Economic Integration and Trade Policy, the General Directorate for Treaty Negotiation and Administration (DGANT), and Honduras’s Permanent Mission to the WTO.

The rationale behind the change is sound. Exports represent on average 43% of Honduras’s GDP, and the trade openness index stands at around 106%. According to the decree itself, having trade policy dispersed within a second-tier undersecretary inside the Secretariat of Economic Development was disproportionate to that economic weight. From a legal standpoint, elevating trade policy to the Presidency carries clear advantages: greater leverage in international negotiations, better inter-institutional coordination, and more direct dialogue with the private sector. This is not an unusual model; countries such as Chile, Colombia, and Peru have trade offices with ministerial rank or direct reporting lines to the executive, precisely to bring more agility to their trade agendas.

For businesses, however, the institutional change raises a legitimate question during the transition: when a concrete issue arises: a tariff barrier, a CAFTA-DR dispute, a rules of origin question, which is now the right door to knock on? It used to be clear. Today, while the OPCE consolidates its operational structure, the Foreign Ministry, the Secretariat of Economic Development, and the new office have overlapping mandates, and that overlap can cost time to those who do not anticipate it.

The OPCE has the potential to transform the way Honduras manages its trade policy, but that will depend on whether the decree translates into clear internal regulations, specialized personnel, and concrete decisions. An office reporting directly to the Presidency only adds value if it operates with the agility that justified its creation.

For any company with foreign trade operations, the time to review contracts, dispute resolution clauses, and ongoing procedures is not when a problem arises, it is now. Mapping the current institutional landscape and anticipating the changes under negotiation are measures that can prevent costly setbacks down the road.