Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
36
Recent Trends in Performance
As in the previous section, it is possible to use changes in the TFIs from 2012 to 2017 to provide
an indication of underlying trends in performance for the OIC countries. The first analysis is by
regional group, as above.
Results in Figure 16 show a general pattern of improvement across OIC regional groups. The
Asian Group stands out, not only for having a stronger level of performance, as noted above, but
also for displaying improvement over time in all four dimensions, although the change is small
in the case of advance rulings. The African and Arab Groups both have strong levels of
improvement in terms of involvement of the trade community, as well as information
availability (African Group) and appeal procedures (Arab Group). However, the pattern in these
two groups is more mixed, because there are also instances of scores falling over time, which
would be consistent with backsliding. These data points deserve further attention at the country
level, which is the next part of the analysis; given that regulatory changes are in question,
backsliding seems relatively unlikely, but it cannot be fully discounted either.
Figure 16: Percentage change in TFI scores, 2012-2017, by OIC regional group.
Source: OECD TFIs.
The analysis now moves to a consideration of trends at the level of individual countries within
groups. Figure 17 shows the African Group. To a greater extent than is obvious from the regional
averages above, there is evidence of backsliding in the African Group—however, this result
should be interpreted with caution: many bars are missing, due to no data for 2012. Nonetheless,
some countries stand out for having moved forward on information availability in a significant
way over recent years: Mozambique, The Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Benin are examples. But in
all these cases, performance is mixed across pillars. The evidence therefore suggests that
although progress is taking place within African countries, it is somewhat patchy both across
and within countries.
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
African Arab Asian
Percent
Group
Information Availability Involvement of the Trade Community
Advance Rulings Appeal Procedures