ISLAMABAD: In a major assessment of more than 30 trade facilitation measures in the Asia and the Pacific region, a new United Nations survey reveals that the regional trade facilitation implementation on average is only about 50 per cent, and suggests that significant room remains for progress in several regional economies.

The assessment confirms that a large majority of countries in the region has been actively engaged in implementing measures to improve transparency, enhance inter-agency coordination, and streamline fees and formalities associated with trade, according to the “Asia and the Pacific Report of the Joint United Nations Regional Commissions Trade and Facilitation and Paperless Trade Implementation Survey 2015”.

The implementation of trade facilitation measures in the region is very heterogeneous. Further investigation of the level of trade facilitation implementation in relation to economic development shows that, while high-income economies systematically have achieved high levels of trade facilitation implementation, the implementation levels in low-income economies differ dramatically from one country to another, ranging from less than 15pc to over 60pc.

The survey released by UN regional commission for Asia and the Pacific, shows that customs in essentially all countries have been actively developing paperless systems to speed up customs clearance, while also improving controls. Nearly 40pc of the economies are now also engaged in implementation of more advanced national multi-agency paperless systems, such as national electronic single windows.

However, implementation of cross-border paperless trade systems remains mostly at the pilot stage. This is certainly not surprising given that, on one hand, many less advanced countries in the region are at an early stage of development of national paperless systems and that, on the other hand, more advanced countries have paperless systems in place that are not fully interoperable with each other.

Remarkably, the only trade facilitation performance “monitoring” measure included in the survey remains one of the least implemented measures across the region. This is worth highlighting, as what ultimately matters is not how many measures one implements, but how effective they have been in reducing the time and cost of trade transactions.

The regional and sub-regional cumulative trade facilitation implementation levels show that, although East and Southeast Asia are performing well above the Asia-Pacific average, all sub-regions still have significant room to make progress in all areas of trade facilitation, starting with institutional arrangements and in further enhancing inter-agency cooperation.

Five trade facilitation measures included in the survey can be categorized as “transparency” measures and the GeneralAgreementonTariffsandTrade article on Publication and Administration of Trade Regulations states that the average level of implementation of all five of these measures across the region is well in excess of 50pc. This is a significantly higher level of implementation as compared to that of other types of measures.

The two least implemented “transparency” measures are advance ruling and advance notification of new regulation. However, both these measures are still implemented to some degree by 33 countries in the region.

The survey says that acceptance of copies of supporting documents instead of originals as well as measures to facilitate express shipping are fully implemented in 30pc of the countries, and are otherwise under implementation in a majority of the countries in the region.

Six of the trade facilitation measures included in the survey were categorized as “cross-border paperless trade” measures. Two of these measures (passing laws and regulations for electronic transactions and establishing a recognized certification authority) are basic building blocks towards enabling the exchange and legal recognition of trade-related data and documents not only among stakeholders within a country, but ultimately also between stakeholders along the entire international supply chain.

About 68pc of the countries surveyed in the Asia-Pacific have at least partially developed the legal and regulatory frameworks needed to support electronic transactions, but they remain incomplete and may not support the legal recognition of electronic data or documents received from stakeholders in other countries.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2015

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