FACILITATING INTRA-OIC TRADE:
Improving the Efficiency of the Customs Procedures in the OIC Member States
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INTRODUCTION
Trade Facilitation has been occupying an importance place in international trade agenda
for the last two decades. Many countries, regional and international institutions have
developed their strategies or programs towards facilitating international trade.
Moreover, several international agreements and standards have been concluded or
developed in this context.
Trade facilitation as a concept, is aiming at reducing time and cost of international trade
transactions. Some of the international institutions have developed their own definition
for trade facilitation. Almost all of these definitions emphasize simplification,
standardization and harmonization of trade procedures as basic principles of trade
facilitation. International institutions have also increased their efforts towards increasing
awareness on the issue and have been providing technical assistance to developing
countries and the LDCs in taking initiatives for facilitating trade.
Similar to the tariffs, trade transaction costs vary among the countries and constitute an
important factor in determining the competitiveness of the countries. While some
countries have reduced the trade transaction costs over the years through sound policies
and investments, some others, especially the LDCs are still facing obstacles in
implementing modern methods and other administrative barriers which result in higher
costs.
Trade facilitation covers a wide area including customs procedures, transport and
logistics, communication etc. Some of the international institutions also include trade
financing especially the payments for trade under trade facilitation.
Improving the efficiency of the customs procedures is playing a central role in trade
facilitation. That is probably one of the reasons of designing the recently concluded
WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement mainly focusing on customs procedures. Efficiency
of customs procedures is among the indicators measured by the various indices
developed by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement is the last fruit of dedicated multilateral
cooperation on customs matters. Several international conventions have been developed
and entered into force earlier under the World Customs Organization (WCO), the UN or
the WTO. Among these conventions, the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) constitutes
as a modern set of standards for customs modernization. More than 90 countries have
signed and ratified the convention. Besides the RKC and other conventions,
recommendations on various specific issues have been adopted by the WCO or the UN
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
RKC and other relevant instruments introduce modern standards for customs
procedures. However, many developing countries and the LDCs face several obstacles