Trade-easing reforms to continue
New United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) research reveals how nearly 60 countries have prepared the ground to cut red tape and streamline revenue collection in the year since the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) entered into force in February 2017, but says reforms should go beyond TFA compliance.
The TFA obligates most of the world’s trading nations to recognise trade-easing measures in international law and so reduce the loss to developing countries of billions of dollars that lengthy waiting times, ungathered income and spoiled goods can cause.
Unctad estimates that the cost of cross-border trade for developing countries is on average 1.8-times higher than for developed countries.
“Article 23.2 of the TFA stipulates the obligation for countries to set up or maintain a co-ordination mechanism that will support the implementation of the trade facilitation provisions included in the agreement,” said Unctad trade facilitation specialist and main author of the study, Arántzazu Sánchez.
“The inclusion of this article represents an official acknowledgement of the importance of coordination and co-operation among relevant stakeholders, including customs authorities and businesses trading across borders, in making trade facilitation reforms happen,” she said.
While the inclusion of trade facilitation committees in a WTO agreement is a novelty, in reality these kinds of bodies have existed for more than six decades, according to Sánchez.
Using information about 59 countries covered by Unctad’s online repository of National Trade Facilitation Committees (NTFCs), the report offers indepth analysis of the operation of NTFCs and how they interpret and apply Article 23.2.
The report concludes that NTFCs should work beyond compliance with the TFA, and that reforms should not end once its provisions are in place.
“NTFCs will remain flexible to promptly adapt to changes new regional and international agreements and priorities might bring in future,” said Sánchez.