Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information

In the Islamic Countries

general, performance is increasing in per capita income level, which would be expected. But the

difference in performance by income group is by no means constant across pillars. For instance,

the groups are bunched relatively closely together in relation to involvement of the trade

community. By contrast, there is a much larger difference between the low income group and

other groups in relation to the availability of appeal procedures. In general, however, the upper

and lower middle income groups perform relatively well relative to the high income group

across all four pillars, although all are within the best practice frontier set by Singapore. The

performance gap with respect to the low income countries stands out as being more serious.

This finding is consistent with the conclusion of Arvis et al. (2018), based on LPI data, that there

is significant evidence of convergence over time in Customs procedures around the world.

Figure 2: TFIs related to information availability, 2017, by income group (with Singapore for

reference).

Source: OECD TFIs.

The above analysis uses countries at all income levels. To focus in on developing countries in

particular, it is useful to re-examine the same data byWorld Bank region, excluding high income

countries, so including developing countries only in the sense in which this report is using that

term. Again, Singapore is included as a best practice reference point.

presents results. Singapore stands out as being well ahead of the developing regions in

terms of performance in relation to information availability. In the developing regions,

performance varies from pillar to pillar, but is always well inside the best practice frontier. Sub-

Saharan Africa stands out as having performance that is weaker than the other regions across

all areas, although South Asia also performs poorly in relation to advance rulings. Otherwise, the

regions perform, on average, in a relatively similar way that could be characterized as a mid-

range level of compliance with TFA requirements on public availability of information.

Compliance in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to a lesser extent in South Asia, is weaker.

0,5

1,5

Information

Availability

Involvement of

the Trade

Community

Advance Rulings

Appeal

Procedures

High income

Upper middle income

Lower middle income

Low income

Singapore