Definition: With the negotiations on trade facilitation, WTO Members aim at further accelerating the movement, clearance, and release of goods. The negotiations are based on the clarifying and improving aspects of the GATT Articles V, VIII and X, enhancing technical assistance and support for capacity building in trade facilitation, and developing provisions for effective cooperation between customs or any other border agency on compliance issues. The negotiations on trade facilitation are part of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and are conducted by WTO member countries in a Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation, which together with other negotiating areas under the DDA are overseen by the Trade Negotiations Committee.
Overview: The negotiations on trade facilitation have been ongoing since October 2004 pursuant to the mandate given to WTO members in the Doha Ministerial Declaration in 2001 and the General Council Decision of 1 August 2004 (The "July Package" and its Annex D). The basis of the negotiations is the review of the existing provisions of GATT Article V ("Freedom of Transit"), Article VIII ("Fees and Formalities connected with Importation and Exportation") and Article X ("Publication and Administration of Trade Regulations"). With the negotiations WTO Members seek to strengthen trade facilitation disciplines as another cornerstone of the multilateral trading system. The negotiating mandate also provides for special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed countries (LDCs), which should extend beyond the granting of traditional transition periods for implementing commitments. In particular, the extent and the timing of entering into commitments shall be related to the implementation capacities of developing countries and LDCs. The provision of technical assistance and capacity building support has become an integral part of these negotiations to enable developing and LDCs to fully participate in and benefit from the negotiations. In this respect, the role of the relevant international organizations, including the IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, WCO and the World Bank (known as “Annex D” organizations), is vital.
The negotiations are based on a "bottom-up" process driven by delegations' proposals submitted to the Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation (NGTF). To date, a great number of negotiating proposals on substantive issue relating to three GATT Articles have been put forward for consideration. Initially, these proposals were grouped into 14 categories of trade facilitation measures, ranging from the publication of trade-related regulation to the clearance and movement of goods and the cross-border exchange for customs information. After the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, the negotiations evolved into actual text-based negotiations, i.e. the measures proposed by Members have been drafted using legal language. These efforts had resulted in the first draft consolidated negotiating text, which was published in December 2009. The document is available on the WTO website under the document code TN/TF/W/165 or in the reference reading section of this website. The initial version of the draft consolidated negotiating text contained a large number of square bracketed pieces of text, representing areas where convergence was to be achieved. Since, it has served the Member as the sole negotiating text.
Over the time, the draft text has been revised and somewhat streamlined, and currently its 8th revision TN/TF/W/165/Rev.8 is available. This version was tabled by the NGTF Chair, Ambassador Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt on 21 April 2011, as part of the Doha package submitted to the Trade Negotiations Committee. The document outlines a new 35-page WTO agreement on trade facilitation with two sections. The first section contains obligations with related transparency issues, border procedures, transit issues, customs cooperation, institutional arrangements, national trade facilitation bodies, and cross-cutting matters. The second one contains provisions on special and differential treatment for developing and LDCs, linking the implementation of obligations of developing countries and LDCs obligation to adequate financial support and technical assistance from developed countries.
Implementation Issues: The challenge in these negotiations is to draft a set of rules that can be applied uniformly by all WTO members , while allowing flexibilities for developing countries in the application of their commitments. One of the concerns of developing countries is their lack of sufficient capacity and resources to implement the new commitments, and how to ensure that an adequate technical assistance to acquire the necessary capacity to implement the new commitments be provided.
Technical Assistance: UNCTAD, World Bank and WTO, in cooperation with each other and with IMF, OECD and WCO are organizing capacity building events to accompany the negotiating process. OECD is implementing a project aimed at developing trade facilitation indicators to measure the impact of trade facilitation on trade flows and costs of trade. The United Nations regional commissions (ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, and ESCWA) are also organizing seminars and undertaking studies related to the WTO negotiations in their respective regions.
Needs self-assessment: As part the negotiations, the Annex D organisations jointly with the WTO Secretariat, and other partner agencies, needs self-assessment exercises were undertaken in more than 80 developing countries and LDCs. Such self-assessment was based on the methodology developed by the World Bank and further refined by the Annex D organisations and can be found in Self-Assessment Guide.
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