Why is Trade Facilitation Best Managed within a WTO Agreement?

• The Doha development agenda unambiguously linked an agreement covering trade facilitation in emerging economies to the availability of adequate technical support and fun ding. This offers a unique opportunity to improve the border management capabilities of those emerging economies within the WTO. The progressive removal of impediments to international trade by improving the general efficiency of border management will benefit all economies.
• Trade facilitation in the WTO is not new. GATT articles V, VIII and X address requirements related to trade in goods and have been incorporated in the GATT for some considerable time. There is a need to improve the current trade facilitation articles in the WTO to establish a coherent and holistic approach to border management.
• Without an international agreement covering some core standards of TF developing countries will be faced with a range of bilateral commitments covering the border management process. These agreements are unlikely to have the scale of benefit of capacity buil ding funds available through a WTO Agreement and will result in a complex matrix of border management commitments likely to be far more onerous than a WTO Agreement.
• The WTO is uniquely placed to ensure that an agreement is effectively implemented and managed. It is recognised by other international organisations as the most appropriate forum for managing international trade agreements.
• The establishment of core standards for the border management of trade will ensure a level playing field for all WTO members. Small traders, emerging economies, and particularly land locked countries, stand to gain most from a common approach.
• A WTO agreement will not only improve the efficiency of trade between individual WTO Member countries but it will assure the bilateral or regional agreements adhere to a common set of standards for border management processes, thereby simplifying and improving the efficiency of all international transactions.
• Without a set of core standards covering trade facilitation, trade will always be subject to unpredictable national preoccupations and interventions. Trade growth in the modern, global economy cannot be sustained if the process is not predictable. A WTO agreement would improve the predictability of individual transactions and minimise national interventions in the trade process; the establishment of core standards for international trade within the WTO will stop the growth of barriers caused by unacceptably onerous, costly and slow procedures. If these core standards are adopted internationally, it will simplify the overall tra ding process;
• Trade procedures such as the TBT Agreement or the Agreement on Import Licensing, are also addressed in the WTO;
• External stimulus is a very effective way of achieving vital domestic reform;
• Countries that are landlocked depend on their neighbours’ goodwill for the transit of their goods to third country markets. Unless they have an enforceable international agreement to protect their tra ding rights, their commercial well-being could be undermined by border control and transit issues;
• There is currently a justifiable preoccupation with the potential use of international trade for terrorism. If countries operate a robust regulatory regime, guaranteed through the WTO, this should provide assurance to the importing country that security issues are being adequately addressed.
• It is important to ensure that standards of border management are progressively improved and to do this the border procedures need to be enforced. This is more likely to benefit developing countries tra ding with other emerging economies, or emerging economies exporting to emerging economies, as they will be more able to predict the legitimate costs and procedures that their goods will encounter in export markets.

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