Authorized Economic Operators
In the Islamic Countries:
Enhancing Customs-Traders Partnership
50
Before going into the details of the results of convergence analysis, it is important to
understand the economic diversity of countries with operational AEO programs in terms of
their size, trade openness and trade intensity at their border check points as these three may
have been important in the AEO adoption. Granted, safety and security are among the most
important determinants of AEO adoption. However, it is notoriously difficult to measure the
safety and security of a country due to measurement issues using the available data. Therefore,
to have a preliminary understanding of economic diversity, one can review these three
measures briefly.
Table 3.5. General Overview of Survey Respondents, 2017
GDP
(in billions of USD) Trade Openness
Average Trade Intensity at
Border Checkpoints
(in billions of USD)
Egypt 237 32% --
Indonesia 1,011 30% --
Jordan 40.5 62% 2.3
Morocco 111 53% 1.2
Oman 71.9 76% 2.1
Tunisia 39.9 85% 1.3
Turkey 841 42% 1.9
Uganda 26.4 30% 0.4
Source: Authors’ compilation using survey data and WDI.
Table 3.5 shows that there is a great degree of variability in terms of economic size (proxied by
GDP), trade openness (proxied by [Exports+Imports]/GDP) and trade intensity (proxied by
[Exports+Imports]/#Border Checkpoints) across the group of OIC members that adopted AEO
programs. Economic size ranges between $26.4 million to $1 billion while trade openness
ranges from 30 percent to 85 percent. With the exception of Uganda, AEO holders in OIC have
average trade intensities ranging across $1.2 million to $2.3 million.
Next, survey results are presented under 7 themes. This can be considered as a horizontal
reading of the comparator matrix.
Theme 1: General information on the AEO program
The general information about the AEO program has two counterparts: sectors and types of
operators. The convergence percentage for the sectors of the AEO program variable is 55
percent. The variable in regards to types of operators has a 66 percent convergence across
OIC. The relevant and more detailed information is as follows:
A diverse set of sectors are represented in the various AEO programs within OIC. First of all,
every AEO program includes the manufacturing sector. Energy is the least represented sector
while Transportation/Storage are present in 63 percent of the programs (Figure 3.8).