INF/MSME/R/23  
 
26 February 2021  
(21-1698) Page: 1/4 
  Original: English  
 
INFORMAL WORKING GROUP ON MSMES  
OPEN -ENDED MEETING OF 18 FEBRUARY 202 1 
Summary of discussions  
The following communication, dated 26 February 202 1, is being circulated at the request of the 
Coordinator of the Informal Working Group on MSMEs.  
 
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The MSME Informal Working Group (IWG) met for its first open-ended meeting of the year on 
18 February 2021 . A total of 87 delegations1 attended the meeting, including 23 non-working group 
members ( Bangladesh; Cambodia; Chad ; Congo; Egypt;  Gabon; Indonesia; Jamaica; Kuwait, the 
State of; Maldives; Mauritius; Morocco; Nepal; Niger; Rwanda; Senegal; Sri Lanka; Togo; Trinidad 
and Tobago; Tunisia; United States of America ) and two WTO Acceding Members (Belarus and 
Uzbekistan) . Ambassad or José Luís Cancela Gómez of Uruguay, Coordinator of the MSME Informal 
Working Group chaired the meeting . 
 
1  SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS  
1.1.  The Group  met for its first open-ended meeting of the year on 18 February 2021, in virtual 
format.  
1.2.  The meeting began with presentations by external speakers. The Global Express Association 
(GEA) presented a flexible system based on automation to simplify duty and tax collection at the 
border  on low -value shipments, thereby helping MSMEs to export, especially through e -commerc e, 
and increasing the efficiency of government tax and duty collection. The GEA highlighted certain 
economies that have already implemented these kinds of measures and the Group invited Canada 
and Australia to present their systems for taxation of low -value shipments (see Annex below) at a 
forthcoming meeting. This was followed with a presentation by the United Nations Centre for Trade 
Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) to present to the Group their Integrated Services 
for MSMEs in Internation al Trade (ISMIT) concept. ISMIT is an intermediary, non -government 
service to aggregate trade services like customs clearance, legal advice and insurance to fill the gap 
between a purchase or orders made or received by a MSME and government trade agencies or 
national single windows. Next, the OECD presented updates on its SME and Entrepreneurship work 
focused on SME finance, including a scoreboard of the types of financial instruments available to 
SMEs in almost 50 economies and a forthcoming paper on trade  finance in the digital era. The OECD 
highlighted the need for a cohesive regulatory environment to improve interoperability. Finally, at 
 
1 Afghanistan; Albania; Argentina; Australia;  Bahrain, Kingdom of;  Bangladesh ; Belarus ; Belgium; 
Brazil; Brunei  Darussalam; Cambodia ; Canada; Chad; Chile; China; Colombia; Congo ; Côte d'Ivoire; Czech 
Republic; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt ; European Union; Finland; France; Gabon ; Germany; 
Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong, China; Hungary; Iceland; Indonesia ; Ireland; Israel; Jamaica ; 
Japan; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Korea, Republic of; Kuwait , the State of ; Lao People's Democratic Republic; Latvia; 
Lithuania; Malaysia; Maldives ; Mauritius ; Mexico; Moldova, Republic of; Mongolia; Montenegro; Morocco ; 
Myanmar ; Nepal ; New Zealand;  Nicaragua: Niger ; Nigeria;  Norway; Pakistan; Peru; Philippines; Poland; 
Portugal; Romania; Russian  Federation; Rwanda ; Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of; Senegal ; Singapore; Slovak 
Republic; Slovenia; Spain; Sri Lanka ; Switzerland; Chinese Taipei; Togo; Trinidad and Tobago ; Tunisia ; 
Turkey; Ukraine; United  Kingdom; United States of America ; Uruguay; Uzbekistan ; Viet Nam (non MSME 
Group members are in italics ). INF/MSME/R/23  
 
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  the initiative of the Canadian delegation, Cybersecure Canada presented its recent strategy to 
improve MSME cybersecur ity through direct education; equipment and tools; e -commerce platforms 
to protect users; and ensuring cybersecurity solutions are suited to MSME needs. Launched in 2018, 
the program me is in its pilot phase through fall 2021 and offers a voluntary certific ation program me. 
See Annex for more detail on these presentations.  
1.3.  The Group also received update briefings by other WTO committees on their work related to 
MSMEs. Ambassador Rashidi Said (Malaysia), Chair of the Working Group on Trade , Debt and Finance  
(WGTDF) , noted a slight improvement in trade finance after the first half of 2020. He also welcomed 
a submission by C ôte d'Ivoire ( WT/WGTDF/W/98 ), which is based on Annex 6 of the MSME package, 
to consider how MSMEs' access to trade finance could be facilitated. Next,  Mr. Carlos  Vanderloo 
(Canada), Chair of the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), noted good work had been 
made on the work programme on SMEs, including a draft final report, and highlighted the 
Committee's work on e-GPA, which provides an integrated point of access to the market access 
information under  the agreement  together with related information that the GPA Parties are 
committed to provide . Lastly, the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) presen ted 
updates, including its work on e -Phyto certificates.  
1.4.  Mexico also updated the Group on the progress of the Trade4MSME web platform to bring 
together trade information for MSMEs and policymakers. Work has now started on the IT 
development of the platform , including initial design and prototyping. A soft launch is aimed for 
MSME Day 2021 at the end of June.  
1.5.  Sponsorship of the Group's package (INF/MSME/4) was also discussed. Since the package was 
first circulated in December, Cambodia, Thailand and Kuwait h ave confirmed their intention to 
sponsor the package, bringing the total number of sponsors to 95. The package will remain open 
until the end of February for additional participation.  
1.6.  Finally, members turned to a discussion of the organization of the Group 's work for 2021, which 
focused around three topics. First, implementation of the package was flagged as a key priority 
including how best to bring these items to the attention of WTO standing Committees. Second, 
informal discussions will be planned in the  coming month to discuss the Group's objective for MC12. 
Finally, suggestions of new issues for the Group to consider were raised such as cybersecurity; 
innovation and startups; and trade facilitation including Single Windows and Authorized Economic 
Operat ors (AEOs). 
2  NEXT STEPS  
2.1.  The coordinator noted various events of interest to the Group. These included three sessions 
of the AfT Stocktaking event from 23 -25 March 2021 , namely COVID -related MSME Aid for Trade 
(Uruguay)  on 23 March from 17.00 -18.30; MSMEs pr omoting economic recovery in a post -COVID -19 
world: a Trade facilitation approach (El Salvador)  on 24 March from 14.00 -15.30; and Trade 
intelligence for business recovery – Global Trade Helpdesk (Switzerland)  on 25 March 
from 11.00 -12.30 . Additionally, The Global Trade & Blockchain Forum will occur on 30 March with 
sessions relevant to MSMEs.  
2.2.  The Group's next open -ended meeting of 2021 was moved from 26 April to 4 May. Following 
this, meetings will take place on 24 June 2021; 25 June 2021  (MSME Day); 28 July 2021; 
12 October  2021; 30 November 2021; and 7 December 2021.  
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  INF/MSME/R/23  
 
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  ANNEX  
PRESENTATION SUMMARIES  
1  GEA 
1.1.  The Global Express Association GEA presented a video to the Group (available on their website ) 
noting how the Internet has allowed for more MSME participation in trade and that the volume of 
small parcel shipments has increased dramatically in recent years. However, customs procedures, 
designed for large shipments, have not kept in step with this change, causing difficulties for many 
small traders at the border. To address this, the GEA has a proposed system of three options for 
consideration by national governments to simplify the process and to focus border formali ties on 
health, security and safety rather than inefficient tax collection. The first option would be to eliminate 
specific duties for parcels under a certain value and instead apply a flat rate on these entries at the 
border. The second option would be to  follow the model implemented by Canada for imports under 
a value threshold which allows for three tariff categories (for example all textiles are grouped into 
the first category), with only one tariff for any product within the category, rather than a mul titude 
of tariffs based on the HS codes of individual products. This would significantly reduce classification 
difficulties. The third option would be to simplify or eliminate import duties altogether, as in Australia 
(which mostly charges a flat 5 per cen t duty on imports) and Singapore  (which is almost entirely 
duty free) , and instead implement a goods and services tax (GST) or value -added tax (VAT) on 
imports  just as applies to domestic transactions . 
1.2.  More information on the GEA proposal can be found here. 
2  UNCEFACT  
2.1.  UNCEFA CT presented information to the Group on the Integrated Services for MSMEs in 
International Trade (ISMIT) project which has been completed and approved since its initial 
presentation in 2019. ISMIT is a single submission portal (SSP) meant to bridge the ga p between 
an e-commerce transaction made on a platform and national single windows or other government 
customs and trade procedures. Although similar to a Single Window in that it seeks to connect 
traders to regulatory procedures and offers facilities to s treamline the official trade process, it is not 
run by the government and could be offered by many different private and non -governmental 
providers. In addition, the ISMIT goes beyond regulatory procedures covered by Single Windows 
and could provide additi onal services related to legal advice, insurance, logistics, foreign exchange 
settlement, etc. and could even act as a source to document small traders' transaction histories for 
access to finance . 
2.2.  More information on ISMIT can be found in the UNECE white paper here. 
3  OECD  
3.1.  The OECD's presentation highlighted the recently updated OECD Scoreboard on financing SMEs 
and Entrepreneurs  with information on 48 economies and a thematic chapter on the evolution of 
SME financing policies. It was also no ted in the presentation that a forthcoming paper on trade 
finance in the digital era would be released soon. The presentation also showed how MSMEs have 
been at the center of the Covid -19 pandemic and bankruptcies are expected to rise sharply in 2021. 
Most economies have implemented business support measures beginning with deferral of payments 
and increased access to credit moving to structural policies such as acceleration of digitalization and 
internationalization. It was highlighted that many new options  theoretically exist to assist MSMEs in 
the digital era, however challenges remain. From a policy perspective, efforts need to be made to 
make the finance process digital from end to end; interoperability needs to be prioritized; banks 
need to be incentivi zed to provide digital solutions; and finally, MSMEs themselves need have access 
to digital tools.  
4  CYBERSECURE CANADA  
4.1.  Although many MSMEs believe they are too small to be targeted for a cyber breach, Verizon 
data for 2019 indicate that more than two fifths  of attacks were against MSMEs. To address this INF/MSME/R/23  
 
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  problem, CyberSecure Canada, a cyber security partnership initiative for MSMEs developed by the 
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security , was created. Canada's national cyber  security strategy, 
administered through the Centre for Cyber Security, has three high level goals – to increase 
resilience of Canadian systems; to foster an innovative and adaptive cyber ecosystem through skills 
and talent; and to provide effective leader ship, governance and collaboration.  
4.2.  CyberSecure Canada is a voluntary certification program me based on 13 "security control 
areas" or best practices on cyber security, such as developing an incidence response plan; creating 
data backups with encryption; and implementing user authentication protocols. Launched in 2018, 
the program me is currently in  its pilot phase through fall 2021 at which point it will move to a 
Canadian National Standard. Outreach and engagement are currently ongoing, with four certificates 
already issued and 175 SMEs undergoing the certification process. CyberSecure Canada also intends 
to engage with other national initiatives including the UK Cyber Essentials  and the US Cybersecurity 
Maturity Model Certification ( CMMC) program me to ensure mutual recognition and reciprocity.  
 
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