Trade facilitation includes reforms aimed at improving the chain of administrative and physical procedures involved in the transport of goods and services across international borders.
Trade facilitation can lead to direct benefits to governments and the business community. Government benefits include: increased effectiveness of control methods; more effective and efficient deployment of resources; correct revenue yields; improved trader compliance; accelerated economic development; and encouragement of foreign investments. Benefits to traders include: reduced costs and less delays; faster customs clearance and release through predictable official intervention; simple commercial framework for doing both domestic and international trade; and enhanced competition.
Successful participation in the global economy will be increasingly determined by whether a country maintains high-quality, reliable trade infrastructure; whether competition is permitted to flourish in the logistics services industries; and whether the regulatory environment is conducive to the relatively frictionless movement of goods and services through the supply chain.
According to studies from the World Bank, improvements to a country's trade infrastructure -- logistics services, port capacity, administrative procedures, customs requirements, etc. -- could do more to increase global trade flows than further reductions in tariff rates.
The Doha Development Agenda, undertaken by the World Trade Organization in November 2001, has made trade facilitation, in particular expediting further the movement, release and clearance of goods, one of the major topics to be covered in forthcoming negotiations. In so doing, the WTO has clearly recognized that trade facilitation is instrumental in ensuring the full realization of the benefits of trade liberalization flowing from successive rounds of multilateral negotiations - to the advantage, in particular, of developing and transition economies, and of small and medium-sized enterprises.
CLADEC recognizes the importance of an active participation between customs inspections official and businesses and commits to work in partnership with governmental authorities to develop and improve country’s trade procedures. As GEA stated to make technical assistance and capacity building more effective and operational, there also needs to be the close co-operation and co-ordination between the relevant international organizations, including the World Bank, IMF, OECD, UNCTAD and WCO, and in this regard CLADEC as part of GEA also stands ready to cooperate.
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