The 7th annual Asia-Pacific trade facilitation forum (APTFF) concluded in Wuhan, China with a call for countries in the region to increase efforts to simplify and automate trade procedures and move towards paperless trade.
The importance of improving the efficiency of trade-related services such as transport, logistics and payment services was acknowledged, along with the need to further develop national and regional legal frameworks to enable the electronic exchange of trade data and documents between all stakeholders along the international supply chain.
The forum concluded that swift action on these issues would need to be taken to ensure that countries could benefit from the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce.
It highlighted the need for removal of cumbersome trade procedures as the cornerstone of strategies aimed at enhancing regional integration, connectivity, and sustainable development.
A report on the implementation survey launched during the APTFF provided data on 44 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and suggested that most countries still had much room for improvement in this area.
United Nations executive secretary of ESCAP Dr. Shamshad Akhtar recognized that the forum had made an important contribution towards achieving regional trade priorities, while noting many issues still need to be addressed.
Reducing trade costs in the region was high on the agenda at APTFF, and the forum noted that developing country trade costs remained much higher, and have fallen more slowly than those of developed economies.
There was wide consensus that ratification and implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) would help in narrowing the cost trade gap across countries.
At the same time, the forum recognized the need for trade facilitation reforms to go beyond the scope of the WTO TFA.
Progress made in recent months by ESCAP members towards a regional treaty text on the facilitation of cross-border paperless trade is welcome news in this context.
The forum also called for a re-think of trade facilitation strategies focusing on small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and the agricultural sector.
It recognises that SMEs face special constraints in taking advantage of trade facilitation measures and that these are noted during implementation, for example, by developing relevant mobile phone applications.
The importance of relying on international standards for sanitary and phytosanitary measures and controls was highlighted, along with the need to develop national and regional agriculture value chain plans and related capacity building programmes.
Organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank and the Chinese International Electronic Commerce Centre, the forum brought together 300 participants from 50 countries.
