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WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION AND TRADE FACILITATION
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is well advanced in a set of negotiations under the heading of “Trade Facilitation”.
Trade facilitation in its accepted definition of “simplification and harmonisation of international trade procedures and associated information flows” deals primarily with the ways in which various participants, commercial, official and financial communicate, interact and co-operate with each other in order to implement the international transaction.
Difficulties and costs, as well as improvements and economies are therefore largely dependent on attitudes, relationships and motivations.
As the WTO has only regulatory powers and makes no pretence to exercise general moral, ethical or social influence, it can do little more, in terms of simplifying international trade procedures, than take some of the edges off the obstacles, complications and on-costs cast on international traders and carriers by official border control agencies, including, especially, Customs.
It would be over-pedantic and unhelpful, however, to criticise this WTO use of a large label to describe a relatively limited set of remedies.
Even in normal trading conditions Customs interventions, especially in the hands of inefficient and/or corrupt administrations, present a formidable facilitation problem and now, when so many Customs have acquired new, stringent anti-terrorist security responsibilities to add to normal fiscal and public interest controls. all international moves towards simplicity have to be supported.
These Facilitation negotiations have, however, to be seen and assessed in the context of the overall WTO situation.
GATT managed to free up so many old hindrances to international trade, especially in tariff levels and quota restrictions that, when it was succeeded by the WTO, most member states saw the main remaining issues as market access and agricultural subsidies.
At the Singapore Summit, in 1996, four additional items – trade facilitation, investment, competition and procurement were added in a special supplementary “package” At the Doha Summit in 2004 and at a later interim meeting this was reviewed and all these items, other than facilitation, were dropped.
The stage has now been reached when the special Group set up by the Council for Trade in Goods, to study and discuss Facilitation has arrived at a set of proposals based on formal Communications from member states that seem very likely to comprise the full range of subjects for possible agreement.
It had been decided, at earlier ministerial meetings, that new regulation would need to be restricted to extensions or amendments to Rules V, VIII and X of the original GATT text. Most resulting proposals are covered by a series of US and EU Communications.
The US has presented detailed suggestions on –
EU Communications have made reference to all these subjects, except Express Shipments. There are additional proposals on –
Standard, simplified procedures and associated information
Customs/trade consultation
Use of risk analysis and Authorised Trader concept
Convergence of official controls
Elimination of pre-shipment inspection procedures
Non-discrimination between modes of transport
Freedom of transit
Detailed texts of the relevant Communications and supplementary and additional suggestions from other states are to be found on the WTO Trade Facilitation website.
All the EU and US proposals are of interest and benefit to the air cargo community. It is too early, however, to speculate in any practical detail about their likely specific effects in countries at varying stages of development because nothing in the nature of legal texts have yet been produced or agreed upon.
There are also significant doubts and ambiguities about enforcement and timing of any new WTO Customs rulings. WTO Ministers have given strong and binding undertakings to provide Capacity Building and technical assistance aid to countries that may have special difficulty in making necessary adjustments and, in addition, varying periods of delay and grace may be accorded to certain member states under the general principles of Special and Preferential Treatment. Finally, given the unavoidable imprecision of such concepts as the Authorised Trader or risk-assessment, there may have to be some considerable modifications in any application of WTO dispute settlement mechanisms.
In any event, facilitation, as a subsidiary issue, will only go forward if the WTO can attain member states’ accord on access and subsidies.
Meanwhile, therefore TIACA is –
The rules governing representation and attendance at various WTO meetings are complex and, at first sight, somewhat restrictive.
Trade and transport have no central access to WTO policy making. Member state governments are assumed to consult their own commercial interests and bring their views to the conference table. TIACA could apply for an invitation to attend ministerial meetings, but, if present, could only attend plenary sessions as silent observers and would not have access to any working groups.
The WCO is now invited to, and is present at, all WTO facilitation negotiations and some, though by no means all, WTO national delegations, essentially drawn from Ministries of Trade/Commerce, include Customs experts.
For the time being, therefore, the main TIACA contact is by way of attendance at relevant WCO information meetings.
If and when (probably from the beginning of 2006) draft legal texts begin to emerge from WTO Facilitation Group discussions it may be worthwhile for TIACA to apply for observer status at ministerial meetings.
Despite the drastic restrictions on formal consultative possibilities, several other international trade bodes have already found that presence on these occasions can offer useful opportunities for informal contacts with particularly active or influential delegates in respect of Customs reforms that are especially interesting to specific business sectors.
Contacts made in this way can then be reinforced as necessary, by occasional inter-sessional visits to Geneva to renew contact with some WTO ambassadors/delegates and open the way for regular additional communication and consultation.
TIACA will also need to alert members to needs and opportunities for action in individual countries, to acquaint Ministries of Trade/Commerce with subjects in any eventual WTO Customs reform programme of particular importance for the air cargo industry.
The effects and benefits of any or all of these activities might be usefully reinforced, for the broad air cargo community, through TIACA consultation and co-operation with FIATA and the GEA.
John Raven
September 2005
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