Trade & investment

Business key to trade-led economic growth

  • 1 June 2016
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Re-affirming support for the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, members of the Global Facilitation Partnership for Transportation and Trade (GFP) have outlined a range of trade reform recommendations at its Annual Forum meeting taking place today in Shanghai.

Organized with the support of Invest Shanghai and ICC China housed within the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCOIC), the forum brought together International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) members from more than 25 countries and representatives from the World Customs Organization (WCO), the World Bank Group, the International Trade Center (ITC), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The GFP partners underscored the importance of designing and implementing trade reforms in cooperation with business to ensure a trade environment that maximizes trade-led economic growth.

  • More transparent, efficient, secure and compliant cross-border procedures.
  • Enhancement of collaborative approaches in the design and implementation of trade facilitation measures that draw on business experience and expertise.
  • Deeper regional integration through public-private partnerships to coordinate reforms across trading regions.
  • Greater supply chain connectivity through more predictable and less costly clearance processes, that are risk-based and include multilateral recognition of test results.
  • Refinement of systems to facilitate the smooth and efficient movement of smaller consignments, enabling greater SME participation in international trade.

Donia Hammami, ICC’s Head of Customs and Trade Facilitation said: “International trade has come under public pressure in recent years, but we need to remember that trade is actually a driver of sustainable and inclusive growth and embedded in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. By making it easier and less costly for traders in developing countries to access foreign markets we create broad based opportunity and increase the national competiveness of these countries”.

Please click here for an overview of the main outcomes as agreed upon by the GFP partners.

Follow ICC via @iccwbo  #TradeFacilitation.