APEC-WTO Trade Facilitation Roundtable Shares APEC Experience
Sharing APEC's trade facilitation expertise with developing economies has been a key theme of an "APEC-WTO Trade Facilitation Roundtable" held recently in Geneva.
WTO Director-General, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, said the Roundtable provided an excellent opportunity to take account of the views of developing Member Economies that are key to advancing the current round of WTO negotiations.
"Today's Roundtable can contribute importantly to the task that negotiators in the WTO are facing on Trade Facilitation," Dr. Supachai said in his opening remarks to the roundtable.
"APEC has considerable experience on the benefits trade facilitation can produce in terms of an improved trading environment. APEC has also gained experience on the challenges that have to be faced at the national level to implement improved trade facilitation practices.
"WTO negotiators can benefit from learning more about APEC's experience on what has worked and what has not, how the reform of trade facilitation procedures should be sequenced and what has been found to be the best recommendations in this area."
Dr. Supachai highlighted the importance of trade facilitation negotiations that he said have created an important new dimension to the Doha Development Agenda.
"As tariffs and non-tariff barriers have fallen through successive Rounds of negotiations, it has become apparent that improved trade facilitation practices have the potential to contribute to increasing the volume of world trade," Dr. Supachai said.
"Faster processing of imports and exports, using streamlined procedures, can bring efficiency gains to the whole economy, revenue gains to the government, and commercial gains to private business. Trade Facilitation is a vital part of the market access package that is being negotiated in the Doha Round."
The roundtable was attended by more than 100 representatives of WTO Member Economies with a significant number of delegates from the non-APEC economies of Africa and the Caribbean.
Through first sharing of information on APEC's voluntary process, delegates from international forums and economies were able to look at the need for internationally standardized rules on trade facilitation within the WTO's legal framework.
Presentations to the Roundtable were made by a range of speakers including the Chair of APEC's Committee on Trade and Investment, Alan Bowman, the African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Elisabeth Tankeu, and the Chair of the WTO Trade Facilitation Negotiation Group, Ambassador Muhamad Noor Yacob.
Held on February 10, the APEC-WTO Trade Facilitation Roundtable 2005 was organized by Japan with the full cooperation of APEC and the WTO and intended to contribute to a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda.
Dr. Supachai's Introductory Statement is available by clicking here.