Proceedings of the 13th Meeting of
The COMCEC Trade Working Group
7
Answer: The grouping of OIC member countries into three regions reflects practice within the
Organization, and is without prejudice to a particular member country’s status within other
groupings in other fora. It is the usual practice utilized in the COMCEC research reports.
4. State of Customs Information Availability in the OIC: Case Studies and
Recommendations
In the second part of his presentation, Dr. Shepherd gave more specific information regarding
the OIC Member States. He stated that the case study sectionsof the report contains two
different types of studies: those based on a desk review, and those based on field visits. To
complete the former, the report uses publicly available data, as well as the published literature,
supplemented with an analysis of the online resources made available by the countries in
question. The latter incorporates all of those elements, along with information and views from
key stakeholders obtained through in-person interviews.
4.1. Desk Review Case Studies
Dr. Shepherd informed participants by expressing that the first country examined is the UAE. It
is a strong performer in global context, including relative to Singapore as a proxy for best
practice. It performs well in all core dimensions of information availability, although advance
rulings is one point where further work is necessary and this has been recognized by the
government, which has a program currently underway to fully implement an advance rulings
system. The UAE has ratified the TFA, and has included all four relevant articles in Category A,
except for the article on advance rulings. Trade information availability has benefited from
high level government impetus, in line with the UAE’s objective of becoming a global logistics
hub. In addition, reform has involved in the whole trade community and has made extensive
use of IT solutions, through the Dubai Trade single window and the Customs website.
Dr. Shepherd stated that the second country analyzed, Malaysia, is also a strong performer
relative to global best practice in neighboring Singapore. It has ratified the TFA, with all four
relevant articles included in Category A. The MyTradeLink Single Window offers a
comprehensive online resource that provides relevant information and integrates online
processing into a single platform. He added regional initiatives through ASEAN have been
relevant in supporting progress in Malaysia.
The third country, he pointed out, Mexico, has the first Single Window in North America. The
Customs website and electronic Single Window have all key information elements available,
integrated into an online transaction processing environment. While the approach is relatively
comprehensive, there are sometimes issues with the availability of information in English, and
the interface is not as user friendly as in best practice Singapore. Regional integration, and in
particular the important of value chain trade, have provided Mexico with a strong incentive to
continuously upgrade performance.