Single Window Systems
In the OIC Member States
50
The Czech Customs IT Architecture is based on the high availability concept using clustering
and virtualization for providing fault tolerant, load balancing and 24/7 availability of the
services. Czech Customs services are using Czech Government mirror site for business
continuity / disaster recovery. Data warehouse and business intelligence are used for
reporting and analysis services, as well for monitor the KPI’s and performances of the IT
system. In the short term it is planned to certify Customs according to ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC
17025.
2.5 Best Practices
The Singapore, Ghana and Czech Republic Single Window efforts can inspire other Single
Window developments. The best practices are:
Singapore TradeNet Best Practices
The main success of TradeNet lies in the Singaporean Government’s foresight in identifying the
problems, finding a solution and championing the implementation. The close cooperation of all
the stakeholders, the systematic planning with a phased implementation strategy, and the
adoption and use of appropriate technology all contributed to the success of the Single
Window. Specific aspects of the Singapore Single Window experience are:
 Rule-based risk management: over 95% of the requests for permits and certificates are
automatically approved; only 5% require human intervention. After introducing Single
Window in Singapore, the time to process trade documents was reduced from four
days to few minutes.
 Strong commitment of the highest level of government, dedicated committee, and
working group (multi-stakeholder committees and subcommittees), participation of
the private sector, multiphase implementation, education, continuous training and
change management, and a proper legal framework.
 The costs of building and running TradeNet/TradeXchange are quite high (95% of
resources for investing in people with only 5% in the IT system). The Singaporean
government injected significant resources to build TradeNet/TradeXchange and
implemented an operational model that requires more resources to run it but it is
justifiable because of high trade transaction.
 Implementation of the Single submission/ Single form approach, which leads to the
reduction of documents and requests to one.
Ghana GCNeT Best Practices
Ghana’s GCNet Single Window has constantly evolved over 10 years in order to improve its
services and performance. Specific aspects that make the Ghana experience a model for other
countries are: