RESTRICTED  
  
G/TFA/M/19  
 
22 December  2022 
(22-9706) Page: 1/39 
Committee on Trade Facilitation  Original: English  
 
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE  ON TRADE FACILITATION  
19-21 OCTOBER 2021  
CHAIRPERSON: MR CHRISTOPHER O'TOOLE (CANADA)  
Contents  
1   MATTERS RELATING TO THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE 
TRADE FACILITATION AGREEMENT (TFA)  ................................ ................................ ........  2 
1.1   Notifications by Members  ................................ ................................ ............................  2 
A. Notifications under Articles 15 and 16 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement  ........................  2 
B. Notifications under Articles 17 and 19 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement  ........................  2 
C. Notifications under Articles 1:4, 10:4:3, 10:6:2 and 12:2:2 of the Trade Facilitation 
Agreement  ................................ ................................ ................................ .......................  5 
D. Notifications under Article 22 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement  ................................ .... 7 
1.2   Status of Ratification and Notif ication Process  ................................ ................................  7 
2   EXPERIENCE SHARING/THEMATIC DISCUSSIONS  ................................ .......................  8 
2.1   Presentations  ................................ ................................ ................................ ............  8 
2.2   Comp endium Sharing Experiences Related to the COVID -19 Crisis  
(G/TFA/W/40/Rev.1) – Communication from The European Union (G/TFA/W/63)  .......................  9 
3   REVIEW OF THE OPERATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AGREEMENT IN 
ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 23.1.6 OF THE TRADE FACILITATION AGREEMENT  ............  9 
A. Informal Discussion on the Review – Report by the Chairperson and any Additional 
Comments  ................................ ................................ ................................ .......................  9 
B. First Review of the Operation and Implementation of the Agreement  
(G/TFA/W/41/Rev.2)  ................................ ................................ ................................ ........  11 
4   TRADE FACILITATION AGREEMENT FACILITY CONSULTATIONS – REPORT BY  
THE CHAIRPERSON  ................................ ................................ ................................ ........  13 
5   RECENT AND UPCOMING EVENTS  ................................ ................................ ..............  14 
6   DRAFT ANNUAL REPORT (2021) OF THE TRADE FACILITATION COMMITTEE  
TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS (G/TFA/W/64)  ................................ ...............  16 
7   OTHER BUSINESS  ................................ ................................ ................................ ...... 16 
8   DEDICATED SESSION AND CAPACITY BUILDING  ................................ .......................  17 
 
  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1  MATTERS RELATING TO THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE TRADE 
FACILITATION AGREEMENT (TFA)  
1.1.  The Chair welcomed delegations and recalled that the agenda for the meeting had been 
circulated in documents WTO/AIR/TFA/19 and WTO/AIR/TFA/19/Rev.1.  
1.2.  The Committee  agreed to contin ue the practice of holding Item 2 of the agenda "Experience 
sharing/thematic discussions" in informal mode, to allow for frank and interactive exchanges.  
1.3.  The Committee  also agreed  that observers to the meeting could remain throughout the informal 
session.  
1.4.  The Chair added two items: (1) the dates for the Committee 's meetings in 2022; and 
(2) inviting Annex D partners and the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation to the next meeting of 
the Committee . 
1.5.  The agenda was adopted  with the proposed changes.  
1.1  Notific ations by Members  
1.6.  The Chair informed the Committee  that a total of seven new notifications had been received 
since the Committee 's meeting on 22 -23 June 2021. All notifications had been issued as documents 
in the G/TFA/N series.  
A. Notifications under Articles 15 and 16 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement  
1.7.  The Chair drew the Committee 's attention to the first group of notifications, namely those under 
articles 15 and 16 of the Agreement. Since the last meeting of the Committee , three notifications 
had been received from two Members.  
1.8.  The first notification came from Malaysia (G/TFA/N/MYS/Add.2.) which provided information 
on the acceleration of the implementation of two provisions.  
1.9.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the follow ing:  
1.10.  We thank Malaysia for its notification of implementing Article 7.8 and Article 11.9. We 
congratulate Malaysia on their efforts to fully implement all TFA provisions ahead of their initially 
notified February 2022 deadline.  
1.11.  The delegate of the Europea n Union  indicated the following:  
1.12.  We would like to commend Malaysia for their implementation of the dates that they had 
initially notified, in particular on transit and expedited shipments. We would welcome the delegation 
of Malaysia at any time in a sessio n on sharing of experiences on practices, and lessons learned, 
that relate to this accelerated implementation.  
1.13.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
1.14.  Japan thanks Malaysia for its notification. We appreciate Malaysia's efforts to implement the 
Articles before the notified dates and submission of the follow -up notification, which will enhance 
transparency of the implementation status.  
1.15.  The Committee  took note  of the notification and the statements made.  
B. Notifications under Articles 17 and 19 of the T rade Facilitation Agreement  
1.16.  Article 17 covers the Early Warning Mechanism and the extension of implementation dates 
for provisions in categories B and C . 
1.17.  The Chair drew the Committee 's attention to notifications under Articles 17 and 19 of the TFA.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1.18.  The first notification came from Botswana  and was circulated in document 
G/TFA/N/BWA/1/ADD.2. The notification regards a request for an extension to the definitive 
implementation dates for two  provisions . 
1.19.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the fol lowing:  
1.20.  We thank Botswana for its notification. The United States supports Botswana's timely 
extension request to delay implementation of Articles 1.1 and 1.2 from December 2021 to 
June 2023.  
1.21.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
1.22.  Japan thanks Bo tswana for its notification. We appreciate Botswana's efforts to implement 
the provisions, and welcome the timely notification.  
1.23.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
1.24.  The UK also thanks Botswana for their extension request in relation  to Articles 1.1 and 1.2 in 
line with Article 17. We note that this was submitted more than 90 days ahead of the expiration of 
the definitive date. The UK recognizes the significant benefits that the implementation of the TFA 
has to offer and we will look for ways in which we can support Botswana and the NTFC to implement 
relevant Articles ahead of the newly proposed dates.  
1.25.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following : 
1.26.  The European Union notes the notification made by Botswana indicating that COVID -19 has 
prevented the implementation at the anticipated dates. We hope that Botswana will be able to 
implement the provisions by the extended deadline that they have requested.  
1.27.  The Committee  took note  of the notification and the statements made.  
1.28.  The n ext notification came from Ecuador  and was circulated in document 
G/TFA/N/ECU/1/ADD.3. It regards the extension of the definitive implementation dates for a number 
of provisions  
1.29.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.30.  We thank Ecuador f or its notification. The United States supports Ecuador's timely extension 
request to delay implementation of Articles 2.2, 7.4, 7.7, 10.1, and 10.2 from January 2022 to 
July 2023 
1.31.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
1.32.  Japan thanks Ecuador for its notification. We appreciate Ecuador's efforts to implement the 
provisions, and welcome the timely notification  
1.33.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.34.  The EU takes note of the notification that was done in a timely manner.  
1.35.  The del egate of the Ecuador  indicated the following:  
1.36.  We would like to thank the various delegations of the United States, Japan, and EU for their 
comments. Ecuador is committed to implementing its commitments as soon as is feasible . As you 
will have noticed in th e notification , we are experiencing some challenges, and we need some support 
to overcome them. In any case, we are committed to continuing to work in this direction and 
implement as soon as possible.  
1.37.  The Committee  took note  of the notification and the sta tements made.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1.38.  The next notification came from Namibia  and was circulated in document 
G/TFA/N/NAM/1/ADD.1. The notification regards a request for an extension to the definitive 
implementation dates for a number of provisions.  
1.39.  The delegate from the United S tated indicated the following:  
1.40.  We thank Namibia for its notification. The United States supports Namibia's timely extension 
request to delay implementation of Articles 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 3, 6.1, 10.6, and 11, from December 2021 
to June 2023.  
1.41.  The delegate from Japan indicated the following:  
1.42.  Japan thanks Namibia for its notification. We appreciate Namibia's efforts to implement the 
provisions, and welcome the timely notification.  
1.43.  The delegate from the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.44.  We take note of Namibia's timely request for the extension of the implementation deadline 
by 18 months. Given the number of Articles of the TFA that remain to be implemented within this 
extended period, would Namibia be open to le tting us know more about their lack of assistance 
which they mentioned in their request for extension ? It would be useful to us if during the dedicated 
session Namibia feels ready to let us know about their detailed needs.  
1.45.  The delegate from the United Kin gdom  indicated the following:  
1.46.  The UK also thanks Namibia for their extension request in relation to the Articles listed in line 
with Article 17. We note that the request was submitted more than 90 days ahead of the expiration 
of the definitive date. As wit h the UK's previous intervention for Botswana, we will look for further 
ways in which we can support Namibia and the NTFC to implement relevant Articles ahead of the 
newly proposed definitive dates.  
1.47.  The Committee  took note  of the notification and the state ments made.  
1.48.  The next notification came from Saint Lucia and was circulated in document 
G/TFA/N/LCA/1/ADD.2. The notification regards a request for an extension to the definitive 
implementation dates for a number of provisions . 
1.49.  The delegate from the United States  indicated the following:  
1.50.  We thank Saint Lucia for its notification. The United States supports Saint Lucia's timely 
extension request to delay implementation of Article 1.3 from December 2021 to June 2023.  
1.51.  The delegate from Japan  indicated the follo wing:  
1.52.  Japan thanks Saint Lucia for its notification. We appreciate Saint Lucia's efforts to implement 
the provisions and welcome the timely notification.  
1.53.  The delegate from the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.54.  The EU would like to thank Saint Lucia f or their timely notification on their postponing of 
implementation of Article 1.3 of the TFA for a period of 18 months.  
1.55.  The Committee  took note  of the notification and the statements made.  
1.56.  The next notification came from Sri Lanka and was circulated in d ocument 
G/TFA/N/LKA/1/ADD.2, and G/TFA/N/LKA/1/ADD.2/Corr.1) The notification regards a request for an 
extension to the definitive implementation dates for a number of provisions.  (The corrigendum 
corrects the chapeau of the notification).  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1.57.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.58.  We thank Sri Lanka for its notification. The United States supports Sri Lanka's timely extension 
request to delay implementation of Articles 1.3 and 5.1 from December 2021 to June 2023.  
1.59.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
1.60.  Japan thanks Sri Lanka for its notification. We appreciate Sri Lanka's efforts to implement the 
provisions, and welcome the timely notification. We hope that the early implementation of the 
relevant Articles will be achieved so that the notifying Members, namely Botswana, Ecuador, 
Namibia, Saint Lucia and Sri Lanka can enjoy the benefit of facilitation and simplification of Customs 
procedures  
1.61.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.62.  The EU thanks Sri Lanka for  their notification of extension of the timeline for implementation 
of the provisions of Article 1.3 and 5.1. They have mentioned that they have an issue with aid, and 
the EU would like to note that the EU funded Sri Lanka EUR 7.7 million for the implement ation period 
of 2016 -2021. We note, as Sri Lanka has done, that the outbreak of COVID has meant that the 
activities initially planned for 2020 in fact had to be readjusted regarding the implementation 
modality. This is an issue that several Members also me ntioned in their requests for an extension of 
their timeline. In fact, my colleagues in charge of aid mentioned that because of COVID -19 
disruptions it has been challenging in some cases to agree on dates and implementation modalities. 
However, they are co nfident that the strong leadership of the program mes should help 
implementation in the timelines now indicated  
1.63.  The delegate of Sri Lanka indicated the following:  
1.64.  My delegation wishes to thank the delegations of the US, Japan and the EU for their positive 
consideration of the notification made by Sri Lanka to extend the definitive implementation dates 
for two Category C provisions, namely Enquiry Points under Article 1.3 and Notification for Enhanced 
Controls or Inspection under Article 5.1.  
1.65.  As per the init ial notified definitive dates, the two provisions under reference should be 
implemented by 31 December 2021. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Sri Lanka had to be locked 
down several times and only the essential services were provided during such lockdow n periods, 
with a skeleton staff.  
1.66.  Even though Sri Lanka had approached several donor agencies, such as the World Bank, Asian 
Development Bank (ADB), GIZ etc., seeking their assistance to implement the provisions under 
reference, the necessary inter -agency  coordination was not possible due to the pandemic.  
1.67.  My delegation is pleased to mention that currently the World Bank is providing technical 
assistance to the NTFC to implement several category C commitments, especially Articles 1.3, 5.1, 
6.1 & 6.2 under t he TFA.  
1.68.  The Committee  took note  of the notification s and the statements made.  
C. Notifications under Articles 1:4, 10:4:3, 10:6:2 and 12:2:2 of the Trade Facilitation 
Agreement  
1.69.  The Chair drew the Committee 's attention to transparency notifications under Arti cles 1:4, 
10:4:3, 10:6:2 and 12:2:2 of the TFA. They all have the objective of providing transparency, either 
in a broader context – providing information on publication sources – or providing information on 
the specific items, such as a single window oper ation, the use of customs brokers, and customs 
cooperation.  
1.70.  The first notification came from Ecuador in document G/TFA/N/ECU/4/Rev.1.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1.71.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.72.  We thank Ecuador for the updated 12.2.2 notification and for k eeping the contact point 
information up to date.  
1.73.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.74.  The EU commends this updated notification as contact points are crucial for services on 
customs cooperation. We are very grateful for this update.  
1.75.  The second notification came from Lesotho in document G/TFA/N/LSO/4.  
1.76.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.77.  We thank Lesotho for submitting the Article 1.4 and Article 10.6.2 notifications.  
1.78.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
1.79.  The UK thanks Lesotho for notifying the Committee  on Articles 1.4 and 10.6. We encourage 
Lesotho to contact their colleagues at the World Customs Organization and UNCTAD as part of the 
UK's capacity building program for any further technical  assistance needs.  
1.80.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.81.  We would like to commend Lesotho for their notification on the so -called transparency 
measures. They are very useful and pertinent during these times.  
1.82.  The next notification c ame from Singapore in document G/TFA/N/SGP/1/Rev.1.  
1.83.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.84.  We thank Singapore for its updated transparency notification and for ensuring traders have 
access to current customs information.  
1.85.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.86.  We would like to thank Singapore for their updates, these are very useful and we welcome 
their notification.  
1.87.  The next notification came from Tonga in document G/TFA/N/TON/3.  
1.88.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.89.  We thank Tonga for its transparency notification and providing detailed information critical for 
traders.  
1.90.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.91.  We would like to thank Tonga for their notifications, and we would like to seize this opportunity 
to also recall to Members that have not yet notified their transparency notifications as either 
Category A or B when the date has passed or Category C when the final date for implementation 
has pas sed, and have not requested an extension of the timeline for implementation , to proceed 
without delay. We stated many times that we think there is consensus that transparency measures 
are critical for traders.  
1.92.  The latest notification came from Ukraine in d ocument G/TFA/N/UKR/3/Rev.1.  
1.93.  The delegate from the United States  thanked Ukraine for their updated transparency 
notification.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  1.94.  The Committee  took note  of the notifications and the statement made.  
D. Notifications under Article 22 of the Trade Facilitation Agr eement  
1.95.  The Chair drew the Committee 's attention to the notifications under Article 22 of the TFA. 
There were three separate notification obligations identified under Article 22 - Article 22:1, 
notifications by donor members on their recent capacity buildin g activities; and Articles 22:2 and 
22:3, notifications from information on contact points. Since the meeting of 22 -23 June 2021, 
one Member had provided a notification under Article 22.  
Article 22.3  
1.96.  The Chair directed Members' attention to a notification from Switzerland in document 
G/TFA/N/CHE/4. and from Zambia in document G/TFA/N/ZMB/2.  
1.97.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
1.98.  We would like to thank Zambia for their notification of their contact point for aid. This is very 
useful and  pertinent. We note that not every Member having notified Category C commitments have 
informed on the contact point for aid. This is an issue that we will raise at the dedicated session on 
aid. We were a bit slow in congratulating Switzerland for their not ification on aid and on their 
programs of assistance, we are aware that it is difficult to compile such notifications. The EU has 
sent a first series of EU program mes that state previous notifications, indicating program mes are 
still ongoing, and where new  program mes have started and would finish in the next two years. We 
hope that we will be able to complete this information with additional information that we are still 
collecting. This was to indicate to Members where we stand on our own notifications on aid which 
we know are due.  
1.99.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
1.100.   The UK wishes to thank Zambia for notifying the Committee of the contact point information. 
We are encouraged by this demonstration of transparency. We will continue to follow Zambia's 
implementation of the TFA with interest and will explore how we might be able to continue to provide 
support.  
1.101.   The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.102.   The US would like to thank Zambia for this very important notification.  We recognize all of 
the hard work that goes into submitting it to the Secretariat.  
1.103.   The Committee took note  of the notifications and the statements made.  
1.2  Status of Ratification and Notification Process  
Update by the WTO Secretariat  
1.104.   The representative of the WTO Secretariat  presented an update since the last Committee 
meeting held in June 2021. The presentation and all the information used had been sourced from 
the TFA Database website and it is available at : https://tfadatabase.org .  
1.105.   The delegate of Indonesia  indicated the following:  
1.106.   We wish to thank the WTO Secretariat for their presentations where we find that the provided 
information is useful to s ee the progress of ratification and implementation of the TFA. Indonesia 
would like to inform the Committee  of our progress in implementing Indonesia's commitment s – 
Article 3 on Advance Rulings , Article 5.1 regarding notifications on enhanced controls or inspections,  
and Article 7.4 concerning waste management. In this context, Indonesia has been conducting 
various discussions and policy arrangements with the WTO Secretariat and special partner agencies 
to fulfil our TFA commitments. Indonesia wishes to convey that it is optimistic and ready to 
implement provisions of the TFA, particularly the said 3 Articles of the Agreement  within the 
definitive dates. For this reason, Indonesia would like to express its special thanks t o the WTO G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  Secretariat and special partner agencies who have been fully supporting the development 
Indonesia's importance of pursuing the implementation of said commitments.  
1.107.   The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
1.108.   The United States would first of all like to thank Indonesia for this update in terms of its 
implementation of the Category B definitive date. We really appreciate that update and thank you 
and would also like to extend our apprec iation to the Secretariat for all of the work that goes into 
preparing these reports upon which we rely quite heavily . 
1.109.   The delegate of Nepal  indicated the following:  
1.110.   The LDC Group sincerely thanks the Secretariat for updating all of this information and wo uld 
like to thank all Members for their notifications.  
1.111.   The Chair informed the Committee  that since the agenda  was issued on 7 October, the 
Secretariat has circulated notifications under Article 17 from Lesotho and Zambia. Both of those 
notifications will b e taken up at the next Committee  meeting which will take place in the spring of 
2022. Secondly, the chair underlined the usefulness of the reminder document found in G/TFA/INF 
as one of the tools available to help Members keep track of their implementation  dates coming up 
over the next two years. A revised version covering the two -year period 2022 and 2023 will be 
circulated by the Secretariat before the end of December. Recall that this document simply provides 
the timetable for Category B and Category C i mplementation dates as notified by Members as they 
appear at the beginning of each year. The document is  not revise d during the year to reflect any 
changes  that may occur to the implementation dates as a result for a request of extensions or of 
accelerated  implementations of the agreement.  
1.112.   The Committee  took note  of the information and the statements made.  
2  EXPERIENCE SHARING/THEMATIC DISCUSSIONS  
2.1.  This segment of the meeting was conducted in informal mode, with the understanding that 
information Members were  willing to share would be made available on a dedicated website 
(https://tfadatabase.org ) with related links also being included in the minutes of t he meeting. If a 
delegation requested it, their intervention would also be recorded in the minutes of the meeting.  
2.2.  Members addressed the following issues:  
2.1  Presentations  
2.3.  Paraguay's  Experience – Implementation of Article 2 of the TFA and Update of Progress o n TFA 
Implementation. Information on the presentation can be found under the following link: 
https://tfadatabase.org . 
2.4.  Ecuador's  experience - Global Alliance cooperation to strengthen the implementation of the 
Trade Facilitation Agreement with public - private participation. Information on the presentation can 
be found under the following link:  
2.5.  Kazakhstan's  experience with implementation of the  TFA using the example of the Single 
Window for import and export operations. Information on the presentation can be found under the 
following link: https://tfadatabase.org . 
2.6.  Bahrain  presentation on behalf of Bahrain,  Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the 
United  Arab Emirates on Advance Rulings. Information on the presentation can be found under the 
following link: https://tfadatabase.org . G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  2.7.  The Trade Facilitation Reform Tracke r – Presentation by UNCTAD which can be found under the 
following link:  
2.8.  World Customs Organization  presentation on the update of the 2021 WCO survey results on 
the state of play in the area of NCTFs. Information on the presentation can be found under the 
following link: https://tfadatabase.org . 
2.2  Compendium Sharing Experiences Related to the COVID -19 Crisis 
(G/TFA/W/40/Rev.1) – Communication from The European Union (G/TFA/W/63)  
2.9.  Information on the presentation can be fo und under the following link: https://tfadatabase.org . 
3  REVIEW OF THE OPERATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AGREEMENT IN 
ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 23.1.6 OF THE TRADE FACILITATION AGREEMENT  
A. Informal Discussion on the Revi ew – Report by the Chairperson and any Additional 
Comments  
3.1.  The Chair recalled that Article 23.1.6 state s that "The Committee  shall review the operation 
and implementation of this Agreement four years from its entry into force, which fall this year. The 
Committee 's roadmap for the conduct of the review, was circulated in document G/TFA/1.  
3.2.  Since the Committee 's last meeting on 20 -21 July, it met on three occasions in informal mode 
to conduct the review – 22 September, 13 October and 19 October.  
3.3.  The Chair provided a report1 on these meetings and circulated the report to Members following 
the meeting.  
3.4.  The convening notice for the dedicated session was circulated on 1 July. There were 
four communications on the agenda that have been submitted in the context of the review. Thes e 
are: a communication from the Russian Federation (G/TFA/W/47); two communications from the 
European Union (G/TFA/W/49) and (G/TFA/W/50); and a communication from the European Union 
and the United States (G/TFA/W/45/Rev.1).  
3.5.  The delegate of the United Sta tes indicated the following:  
3.6.  Thank you for all of your efforts in guiding us through this four -year review process, we greatly 
appreciate that. In turning to the questions that you had posed to us yesterday at the end of the 
informal meeting in terms of th e agenda, etc., in terms of timing we are certainly eager to hear what 
other Members have to say. We are fine with the four -year period but again open to hear views from 
other Members.  
3.7.  We think that the suggestion to have a standing agenda item for those proposals that Members 
wish to continue to pursue pos t the completion of this report is a very good idea. Of course, the 
Members certainly have the option to withdraw their proposal if they prefer not to continue to pursue 
it after the review. Firstly, und er the US -Brazil proposal , it would be the Committee  which would 
make the ultimate decision for which private sector entity would speak. We think that Members could 
decide a meeting or two ahead of time on which private sector stakeholder would speak to th e 
Committee . We would envision that the anticipation would be on a rotating, ongoing basis based on 
geographic representation, size of the business, and all of the other variables that are set out in 
detail in the proposal . We could also agree to using the  NTFCs as a screening portal to bring the 
private sectors interest to the Committee 's attention. We appreciate the comments received 
yesterday and we would request that any Members with comments or suggestions on the proposal 
to kindly provide them to us i n writing and we would take it from there.  
3.8.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
3.9.  Regarding this, we would like to thank the Chair for guiding us in this process which is very 
intensive and finally we see the light out of the tunnel . We are progressing very much and we thank 
 
1 Circulated in (JOB/TF/229).  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  you for your guidance. With regard to  your outline o f what your report would look like  the discussions 
yesterday in the informal meeting, we would like to insist that the compendium is an annex to the 
final review u ntil its implementation. We call on Members who have important measures that we 
suggested in some cases to be reclassified according to more pertinent TFA Articles to send to us 
their comments so that by 15 November we could have an improved version which could be close 
to adoption.  
3.10.  We do not have strong views for the timing of the next review and we would be fine with  four 
years' time. Our criteria would be that we would have passed quite a number of Category B and C 
implementation dates. Therefore, after  four years from now we would probably have an interesting 
implementation report , maybe more concise than this time round and which would focus on TFA 
implementation on the ground. Regarding the proposals for which there is so far no consensus, they  
would  be kept as a regular agenda item. We also support the US comments that if Members see that 
there is not much support for their proposal then they  could withdraw their proposal. Regarding the 
US clarification as to how they how they intend to integrate Mem ber's comments on the US -Brazil 
proposal engagement of the private sector, we very much welcome the clarifications made. We think 
that it is good that the Committee  decides on who is going to participate and under which criteria. 
It is a very good improvem ent to the proposal, which we support in its objective. We understand it 
is only now a question of deciding modalities, but we have the impression that we are getting close. 
We are looking forward to a revised text to be sent and we hope that this could be  endorsed.  
3.11.  The delegate of the Trinidad and Tobago indicated the following:  
3.12.  I would like to thank you very much for the report on the review of the agreement. Trinidad 
would like to indicate that comments on this review will be submitted in writing for inc orporation. 
We hope to meet the deadline for the next meeting. With respect to the questions that you have 
posed in terms of the timeline for the next review, Trinidad and Tobago will consider a similar time 
period for the review given the challenges that developing countries have in implementing their 
agreement. With respect to the integration of recommendations of proposals, we feel that this should 
be balanced against the existing obligations under the abilities of Members. We hope that in the next 
four years that when we have the next review that there will be more progress in the report.  
3.13.  The delegate of the Argentina  indicated the following:  
3.14.  I wanted to thank the US for the clarifications they have made with regard to their proposal 
with Brazil on the f ormalization of the private sector in the work of the Committee , this is clearer 
now and we have a better view of what they are planning. We agree with the EU in that we feel all 
Members would need to agree that this is a step we need to make and simply th at we are looking 
at making sure we have agreed wording and that we are crystal clear on how things will work. I 
think we are close to a solution on this. With regards to the frequency on reviews, we are seeing an 
emergent consensus, I understand that we a re looking at everything every four years and we would 
also agree that we keep a standing item on the agenda on proposals still under consideration.  
3.15.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
3.16.  I think that there is a lot of merit in having a standing item . Would new items be allowed to 
be added onto that agenda item or would it be restricted to proposals that are already under 
consideration?  
3.17.  The Chair indicated that the main purpose as suggested for the title is follow -up to the 
four-year review . Therefore, by definition it may end up being restricted to proposals that are already 
identified . This was about creating a space for those Members but it does not necessarily mean that 
those proposals that did not gain consensus are on the agenda for every meeting. It is up to Members 
themselves to request, it is just simply a nod for Committee  Members to be able to place an item 
on the agenda in connection with the results of the four -year review. It does not obviously exclude 
any Member from putt ing any item on the agenda in other parts if they wish to bring it forward.  
3.18.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
3.19.  Thank you Chair that is very helpful and as always very pragmatic and sensible. I would also 
like to add that the UK se es the four -year time period for review as sensible, although we do not G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  have a particularly strong opinion about this. I think anything shorter than that would be 
overburdensome and it would be good to hear from the LDC Group actually for their views on th at 
proposal as well.  
3.20.  The delegate of Brazil  indicated the following:  
3.21.  Brazil will stress its proposal about custom cooperation, we want to keep discussing  it and we 
want to keep  it on the agenda of the Committee  in the following session of the draft. We als o hope 
to receive from our friends of the European Union and Türkiye  the draft text to incorporate in our 
proposal. Also, our two proposals together with the US regarding the private sector and also our 
elimination on casualization. We would like to keep d iscussing about the companion of the European 
Union, Brazil will send to the European Union the comments based on the change of Articles.  
3.22.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
3.23.  Japan is interested in your idea regarding having the standing agenda item for the proposals 
which did not reach consensus within the Committee .  
3.24.  The Chair indicated that the Secretariat would  circulate the text shortly and thanked members 
for their contributions . It was good to hear that there seems to be support for this a pproach of 
maintaining proposals in the text of the report itself with the clarification  that these are still under 
discussion in the Committee  and that we would include a recommendation in the report that a new 
agenda item be added to future meetings to p rovide space for follow up to this review.  
3.25.  The Committee  took note  of the information and the statements made.  
B. First Review of the Operation and Implementation of the Agreement 
(G/TFA/W/41/Rev.2)  
3.26.  The Chair moved to Agenda item 3B, which are communications that have been submitted in 
the context of the review and which are listed on the agenda. As indicated in my report, these 
proposals have been discussed in the informal dedicated meetings, however I did want to give an 
opportunity to the Committee  to discu ss further in the regular meeting if delegations wish. I'll take 
them up in the order in which they appear in the agenda and open the floor for comments after each 
proposal. As I have said, we have spoken about these in an informal, but it is important tha t we 
have a chance to do that in the formal session. First are the EU comments on the first draft review , 
followed by a communication from the LDCs.  
3.27.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
3.28.  The EU will discuss directly with the LDC Group r egarding the comments made yesterday by 
LDCs on the EU introductory statement in document G/TFA/W/ 41/Rev.3 on Categorization of 
Commitments . 
3.29.  The delegate of Ukraine  indicated the following:  
3.30.  Thank you Chair for the report and all of the efforts during the course of their consultations 
during the first review. Just to briefly discuss our proposal, since this is the first time it has been 
reflected on the agenda. Ukraine would like to reflect in  the first review of the operation and 
implementation of the TFA agreement information on Ukraine's intervention made in the course of 
the TFA Committee  meeting in February 2019. With this in mind and in consultations with the WTO 
Secretariat, we have come  up with a place and wording that was taken from the minutes of the 
meeting as contained in G/TFA/M/7, which formed our proposal.  
3.31.  The delegate of the Russian Federation  indicated the following:  
3.32.  The Russian Federation would like to thank the delegation of U kraine for submitting its 
proposal and to provide Members with a comment of rather general nature than a substantive one 
on any issue previously raised under the item " Other Business". Firstly, the notion of specific trade 
concern under Other Business does  not exist as it is not stipulated in the Rules of Procedure of this 
Committee  (document G/L/1342). Secondly, Other Business is a specific item itself. As we all know, G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  according to Rule 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Council (WT/L/161) , discus sions on 
substantive issues under "Other Business" shall be avoided and [The Committee ] shall limit itself to 
taking note of the announcement by the sponsoring delegation, as well as any reactions to such an 
announcement by other delegations directly conce rned. We believe that the phrase "limit to any 
reactions to such an announcement" underpins the idea of item's specific nature. Ultimately, the 
work on the first review of the operation and implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement 
report should n ot lead to the elaboration of new notions, such as "specific trade concern under other 
business", which may go beyond existing practices and does not comply with mentioned rules of 
procedure of this body. Therefore, the Russian Federation cannot support th is proposal. We are of 
the view that any kind of discussions held under item "Other Business" within the framework of the 
Committee  on Trade Facilitation should be limited to any reactions to such an announcement, 
particularly, afterwards a Committee 's mee ting, and, consequently, should not be included into the 
report of this Committee . 
3.33.  The delegate of Ukraine  indicated the following:  
3.34.  Thank you to the Russian Federation for drawing attention to the rules of procedure on this 
Committee . Following indicated p rocedure, at the beginning of the meeting on 19 February 2019, 
Ukraine has requested to add an item under "Other Business". No objections have been raised by 
any Member as to the inclusion of this item to the agenda of February's meeting. No procedural 
objections were further raised after Ukraine's statement at the same meeting. As such, the agenda 
was adopted by consensus and the inclusion of the item was done in line with Rules 3, 4 and 6 of 
the rules of procedure of the Committee . With regards to the rul es mentioned by the Russian 
Federation, indeed, discussions on the consented issues on "Other Business" shall be avoided and 
the General Council shall limit itself to taking note of the announcement of the sponsoring delegation.  
3.35.  We further note, Rule 26 s tates "while the General Council is not expected to take action in 
respect of an item introduced as "Other Business", nothing shall prevent the General Council, if it so 
decides". Ukraine, however, did not request any actions to be taken by the Committee  and made a 
statement in which it raised its concerns by announcing the new transit restrictions imposed by the 
Russian  Federation. We would like to seek further clarity as to why the Russian  Federation is raising 
its concerns at this time during the first r eview of the TFA Agreement on an item that has a special 
character. This is a Member -driven organization, as a Member we put forward a textual proposal to 
be included in the first review. If no other Member has come forward to include their interventions 
under Other Business, we can only encourage them to do so  as we think that the sharing of 
information of interest to Members  should be reflected in a document on the operation of the TFA. 
If the name of the subtitle "Specific Trade Concerns raised under Oth er Business ", is of a concern or 
is creating some uncertainty with our initial proposal , we can suggest deleting it and keeping just 
the main title " Other Business ". We rely on the Chair's guidance as to a solution of this issue.  
3.36.  The delegate of the Russian Federation  indicated the following:  
3.37.  We would like to thank the delegation of Ukraine for their reaction to our statement and I will 
probably repeat what the Russian delegation mentioned in the informal and formal meeting today 
that Other Business is a specific item  and no discussions can be held under this item. When th e 
discussion on either item took place, there were specific circumstances such as the consideration of 
the matter under the Dispute Settlement mechanism.  
3.38.  The dele gate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
3.39.  Thank you Chair for the opportunity to explain the reason for our withdrawal of this proposal. 
Let me make it clear that this was not because the United Kingdom did not see great merit in the 
proposal. We  introduced this proposal because we perceived opportunities to improve transparency 
and experience sharing in trade facilitation. Firstly, the TPR process is extremely useful, but trade 
facilitation is sometimes covered sporadically or not at all. Secondl y, experience sharing is 
recogni zed as one of the most valuable functions of this Committee , but it is irregular and often 
narrow in scope. So, this proposal aimed to utili ze the existing TPR mechanism, to boost the sharing 
of best practice with Members in  a structured manner and with minimal burden. It was carefully 
designed, by being voluntary and discretionary, to ensure that it complemented and did not 
undermine the TPR process. Following feedback from Members recogni zing the value in these aims 
but a l ack of consensus on whether this is the way to achieve them. And noting the need to bring G/TFA/M/19  
 
- 13 - 
 
  about consensus at this stage of the four -year review, we are taking the pragmatic approach of 
pursuing these aims via other avenues. We especially recogni ze that a r eview of the TPR mechanism 
is imminent under a separate process. We would like to thank those Members who have signalled 
intent to support the UK in working on Trade Facilitation and TPRs outside of the TFC and we will 
continue to work with Members of this  Committee  to encourage best practice experience sharing by 
members in this forum.  
3.40.  The delegate of Trinidad and Tobago  indicated the following:  
3.41.  We would like to thank the UK for the explanation and indicate for all the other comments, 
we will endeavour to provide our responses before the next meeting under review.  
3.42.  This concluded  agenda item 3 .  
4  TRADE FACILITATION AGREEMENT FACILITY CONSULTATIONS – REPORT BY THE 
CHAIRPERSON  
4.1.  The Chair reported on the consultations held regarding the communication from the 
United States  entitled "Role of the Trade Facilitation Committee  in the Trade Facilitation Agreement 
Facility", which had been circulated in document G/TFA/W/36, as follows:  
4.2.  You will recall that at the Committee  meeting of 19 -20 July last, I reported back o n 
consultations I was holding on the Role of the Trade Facilitation Committee  in the work of the TFAF 
which had been raised by the United States in document G/TFA/W/36.  
4.3.  From the start of the discussions, I understood that there was support, to have the Committee  
strengthen its relationship with and oversee the work of the TFAF. This includes improved 
transparency of the TFAF with the Committee  and providing a mechanism for guidance from the 
Committee  to be given to the TFAF but also a strong sentiment not to micromanage TFAF's work  
4.4.  Following our Committee  meeting in July, I subsequently convened small -group consultations 
on 5 occasions: 28 July, 15 September, 27 September, 1 October and 20 October . 
4.5.  On 27 July, I circulated a document entitled Guidelines for  the Management and Operation of 
the Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility Facilitation Agreement Facility (TFAF). The suggestion to 
Members was to come up with a set of guidelines to provide direction to the work of the Facility.  
4.6.  Following the informal m eeting of 28 July, I circulated in response to a request from a 
delegation a table entitled "Informal Comparison Chart" based on my thinking regarding possible 
guidelines for the management and operation of the TFAF and how I see with a comparison to the 
current TFAF Guidelines.  
4.7.  The purpose of this document was to set out a relationship between the Committee  and the 
Facility in which the Committee  was setting out the priorities that it wanted to address in terms of 
implementation of the TFA. Following the i nformal meeting of the 28 July, I circulated in response 
to a request from a delegation, a table, that provided some comparison between the TFAF guidelines 
and my thinking as to that document to which I just referred. The Committee  met again on 
15 Septembe r, to further examine possible ways forward and how best to improve transparency.  
4.8.  The meeting of 27 September discussed possible means of increasing transparency regarding 
TFAF activities, particularly its upcoming activities.  
4.9.  At the meeting of 1 October, I presented a mock -up of two web pages that I hoped captured 
to some degree the outcome of our previous discussions in the small -group meetings. Specifically, 
the web pages comprised an online assistance activity request form for submission to the TFAF; an d 
enhancements to transparency through a tracker dashboard which would offer Committee  members 
the ability to monitor the follow -up to these requests in real -time. As I recall from the past, there is 
an online activity request form that was used by Members  to seek TFAF help in specific areas.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
- 14 - 
 
  4.10.  Following the meeting of 1 October, I circulated three documents: an Activity Request form, 
an Activity Tracker and an example of the detailed description of the activity request that could be 
downloaded from the track er.  
4.11.  I would sum up the work in the consultations as continuing to examine a form of guidance 
from the Committee  to set out the relationship with, and to provide some direction and guidelines, 
to help TFAF. In parallel, the consultations have come up with an idea that seems to be agreeable 
to all that all requests would be run through a request form and that information would be available 
to all Committee  members through a tracker. In this way, the Committee  would have a line of sight 
into further into what requests have been made, and other Members could get in touch with the 
requester to see if they could help out.  
4.12.  We will continue working to see how transparency can be improved but the small group has 
reached agreement on introducing the tracker of activities and TFAF can now accept requests for 
TACB once the web -based tracker and request form are up and running.  
4.13.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
4.14.  The United States appreciates th e participation of Members and the collaborative approach 
by all. We are satisfied with the solution so that TFAF can work once again on Members' requests 
and other activities.  We look forward to working with others on the document that the Chair 
envisaged  to supplement the TFAF operational guidelines, but certainty support TFAF getting these 
activity requests up and running and support flowing.  
4.15.  The delegate of Trinidad and Tobago  indicated the following:  
4.16.  Thank you very much for your report on the consultat ions, we are pleased to see that there 
is some resolution that will allow the TFAF to continue working and that we can expedite the request 
from Member states.  
4.17.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
4.18.  The EU supports the Chair's efforts,  and we appreciate receiving the detailed report already 
mailed to the Members which is a good service to us. We hope that a mutually agreeable solution 
will be found as soon as possible to get TFAF fully operational.  
4.19.  The Chair proposed  to hold small group  discussions in an effort to develop this idea further, 
and to find out if consensus could be reached on proceeding in that manner. Interested Members 
who wished to participate in those consultations should contact the Secretariat and a meeting would 
be or ganized to delve further into this idea and examine if the Committee  could come up with a 
document that satisfied both Members need to get the TFAF working as soon as possible but also 
reflected guidance provided by the Committee . The Chair would report ba ck to the Committee  on 
the outcome of those consultations at the next meeting.  
4.20.  It was so agreed .  
4.21.  The Committee  took note  of the information and the statements made.  
4.22.  That concluded  agenda item 4.  
5  RECENT AND UPCOMING EVENTS  
5.1.  The Chair referred to the  "Repor t by the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility", which was 
distributed in G/TFA/W/66.  
5.2.  A representative of TFAF indicated the following:  
5.3.  The report provide s statistics on the grant expressions of interest and project preparation 
grants that have been aw arded to date. To date, we have received 18 Expressions of Interest, which 
were each circulated to our list of 68 representatives and donors and development partners, those 
that are active in the provision of Trade Facilitation implementation support. Of t he 18 Expression G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  of Interests circulated, 5 of these resulted in the indication of potential implementation support and 
they covered a total of 57 Articles of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. Almost all the Expressions of 
Interests requests we received ar e from multiple TFA articles. Once a potential implementation 
partner has been identified, TFAF puts the two parties in contact with each other and steps out of 
the picture. However, if the implementation report does not come through the Member can return 
to the TFAF grant process. If circulation of an Expression of Interest does not lead to implementation 
support, the Member will be invited to complete an application for a project preparation grant, or a 
PPG, and this application form builds on the Express ion of Interest application form to streamline 
the process so the same information from the articles does not have to be input again. It is up to 
the Member to complete and validate the application if they meant to move the PPG process forward. 
Of the 13  Expression of Interests that did not result in finding implementation assistance, 2 countries 
were not eligible to request a PPG because they are WTO Observers or in arrears. Eight Members 
completed their applications and requested a PPG. One Member did not  move forward to a grant 
request after they decided that they could implement the provisions themselves, and two Members 
started the application process but did not complete it. Perhaps this was due to different priorities 
during the COVID -19 pandemic.  
5.4.  One of these Expressions of Interest was received during this reporting period and it resulted 
in an offer for implementation support within one day of receipt of the application and it covered 
six provisions of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. We are please d to find that the procedure for 
circulating and responding to Expressions of Interest ha s become more established and familiar to 
the development partners. Offers to provide this implementation assistance have been coming 
forward more quickly and in greater numbers.  
5.5.  This is true for the PPG process as well. Looking at the PPGs, of the eight Me mbers that 
completed the PPG, seven were awarded a PPG and one application is still under discussion. Of the 
seven PPGs awarded, five have been completed, one of them during this reporting period, two were 
ongoing during this period and will finish by the end of the year. Once a PPG has been awarded, 
TFAF hires an expert consultant to work with the Member to prepare a project proposal for each TFA 
article requested in the application. Each project proposal sets out information such as, Member's 
detailed imp lementation needs, budget, proposed work plan, and identifying the agencies that 
should be involved in the work. The consultant also works with the Member to try and identify 
possible implementation support. TFAF is actively involved in the discussions wit h the Member and 
consultant when they talk with the development partners and that happens both while the PPG is 
conducted and if necessary TFAF continues the discussions with these development partners after 
the PPG has been completed.  
5.6.  Of these five compl eted PPGs, potential implementation support has been identified for 
four Members and this is one more than in the written report that was finalized last week. Since 
then, two development partners have stepped forward offering support for the PPG that was r ecently 
completed, and the expert consultant provided guidance to the National Trade Facilitation Committee  
on how one article can be implemented by that country itself without need for assistance. This 
Member now has what it needs to implement all four TF A articles that were covered in the PPG. The 
remaining PPG, which implementation support was not found, has moved to the next phase, the 
project implementation phase. The selection Committee  is currently reviewing a request from this 
Member for project imp lementation grant for each of the three TFA articles that were in the original 
Expression of Interest and PPG. The selection Committee  will complete their review this month, if 
the grants are approved then information will be posted on the TFAF website. If  the applications are 
not approved, the selection Committee  will try to offer recommendations to the Member, for example 
how to revise their application for resubmission or how to seek assistance elsewhere.  
5.7.  In our last report, we noted the lack of represen tatives of donor Members on the selection 
Committee , this problem has been temporarily resolved through the addition of a second Annex D 
partner, UNCTAD to serve on the Committee  to review project implementation grant applications.  
5.8.  Moving onto the website,  I am pleased to inform you that migration is almost complete. All the 
information on our current website has been moved to the upgraded technology and we are currently 
testing the site, which means reviewing all of the pages for consistency, placement and  errors. This 
slide shown now gives you a sneak preview of the design. We will replace the current site with this 
new site as soon as the testing is finished, and we aim to finish very quickly. Then we can begin to 
add new information. Of course, our top p riority will be this new page that the chair described, the 
tracker of the TFAF technical assistance activities. We will also make adjustments to the current G/TFA/M/19  
 
- 16 - 
 
  application form that is online, and we will add information on our completed TFAF activities. We 
thank everyone for their input on this tracker. We also plan to add information on the Expression of 
Interest that result in successful matchmaking, and we will enhance the information that is already 
provided on the website for the PPGs that have been awa rded. These are just a few of the examples 
of the transparency we plan on adding. The website address tfafacility.org  will remain the same after 
the migration, so you will access it the same way as you do now.  
5.9.  The Chair indicated the additional document G/TFA/W/67, which was a report from the ITC and 
from Annex D partners to the Committee  on Trade Facilitation.  
5.10.  The Committee took note  of the reports and of the statement made.  
5.11.  That concluded  agenda item 5.  
6  DRAFT ANNUAL  REPORT (2021) OF THE TRADE FACILITATION COMMITTEE  TO THE 
COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS (G/TFA/W/64)  
6.1.  The Chair recalled that according to the "Procedures for an annual overview of WTO Activities 
and for reporting under the WTO" (WT/L/105), which were adopted by the General Council on 
15 November 1995, all bodies constituted under Agreements in Annex 1A of the WTO Agreement 
are required to submit an annual factual report to the Council for Trade in Goods, which is then to 
take note of these reports.  
6.2.  In line wit h this requirement, a draft annual report of the Trade Facilitation Committee  to the 
Council for Trade in Goods was circulated in document G/TFA/W/60.  
6.3.  The Chair asked the Secretariat to update the report, taking into account the current meeting 
and any written comments from Members, and circulate the revised report to Members for their 
approval through a written procedure.  
6.4.  This concluded  agenda item 6 .  
7  OTHER BUSINESS  
7.1.  The Chair informed the Committee  of the meeting dates for 2022: 1 and 2 March 2022, 1 and 
2 June 2022, and the 4, 5, and 6 October 2022 with a dedicated Session on Technical Assistance 
and Capacity Building Support would take place on 6 October.  
7.2.  The Committee  agreed  to invite the Annex D organiz ations, as well as the Global Alliance on 
Trade Facilitation, to the next meeting.  
7.3.  The Chair informed the Committee  that there would be an informal dedicated session on the 
15 October, to discuss the four -year review, and the possibility of celebrating th e five -year 
anniversary of the TFA in 2022. Such an event had been successfully conducted by Members in 
relation to the Informational Technology Agreement and he thought this could be something the 
Committee  might be interested in organizing to allow for s ome enhanced experience sharing and to 
celebrate the five -year implementation and success that the TFA has seen over the past few years.  
7.4.  The delegate of Norway  indicated the following:  
7.5.  I would really like to support your last proposal. I think that the TF A deserves a great 
celebration and let us also include private sector and all the stakeholders in this celebration.  
7.6.  The Committee  took note  of the information and the statements made.  
7.7.  The Chair thanked the Committee  for their participation and the interp reters for their hard 
work.  
7.8.  The meeting was adjourned .  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8  DEDICATED SESSION AND CAPACITY BUILDING  
8.1.  The Chair recalled that in accordance with Article 21.4 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, the 
Committee  should hold at least one dedicated session per year.  The agenda items for the dedicated 
session were listed under Article 21.4 , as follows:  
1) Exchanges on any Implementation Problems  
2) Review of Progress in the Provision of Assistance and Support for Capacity Building to 
Support the Implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement  
3) The Sharing of Experiences and Information on Ongoing Assistance and Support for Capacity 
Building and Implementation Programs, including Challenges and Successes  
4) The Review of the Operation of Article 21:2 (Assistance and Support fo r LDCs)  
 
8.2.  A representative of Tonga , Ms. Lorraine KAUHENGA, Deputy CEO, Trade Negotiation & Policy 
Division, Ministry of Trade & Economic Development made a presentation on Tonga's 
Implementation of TFA article 7.8: "Expedited shipments for the importation of the COVID -19 
Vaccine", and indicated the following:  
8.3.  Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that each WTO Member represented here operates in their 
own unique national environment.  In Tonga's case, the Kingdom of Tonga is made up of 169 islands 
spread acr oss approximately 700,000 square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean. We have two main 
international airports and seaports with the largest being on the main island of Tongatapu. We have 
been a Member of the WTO for 14 years, since 2007. In terms of trade faci litation, Tonga's Revenue 
and Customs Services have been actively involved in implementing modern practices for some time. 
However, the national coordination approach to trade facilitation across all border agencies was 
brought together in 2020 under Tonga 's Trade Facilitation Agreement Roadmap, which contains a 
series of activities and initiatives up to 2029. Tonga also completed its first ever time release study 
and Customs is in the process of implementing ASYCUDA  World. The Ministry of Trade and Economi c 
Development has signed an MOU agreement with Tonga's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This 
agreement sets out the arrangements of both parties to collaborate in implementing public and 
private consultations for program mes that would bring together vario us stakeholders, and 
consolidate our efforts in engaging with the private sector for the benefit of the economy. An 
imperative aspect for the initiative to expedite shipments for vaccines was a national response to 
the COVID -19 global pandemic. The focus o f the Government of Tonga is to keep its 169 islands 
COVID free and support progress in its vaccination efforts. At the time, Tonga had only two -ICU 
beds. Tonga had in place a national COVID -19 plan and Committee  and the infrastructure to safely 
receive and store COVID vaccines. Similar to many countries, the Government for the Ministry of 
Health is a major importer of vaccines, medicines, pharmaceuticals and medical goods.  
8.4.  Regarding the approach taken in Tonga t o review and revise the procedures for expedited 
clearance, our first step was to establish a small government agency team, coordinated by the 
Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. The lead team had representatives from the Ministry 
of Health, Minist ry of Revenue and Customs, Ministry of Agriculture of Food and Forest, and of course 
the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. Each participating agency appointed an officer or 
officers to the lead team to insure there was consistency of participatio n for the span of the project. 
The role of the lead team was to lead engagement and develop a simplified and coordinated 
procedure for imports. The lead team quickly acknowledged that this scope was not only the 
COVID -19 vaccine, but it was also vaccines, medicines, medical goods, pharmaceutical, and 
therapeutics. Having established the lead team, all border organizations including public and private 
sector representatives were invited to attend a briefing to gain an overview of the expedited 
clearance proc ess and procedure and the lead team undertook a physical role, going through every 
border organization 's workplace to observe the import procedures in action. The lead team observed 
the activities, identified the documents and data that were used and ident ified the timelines for the 
activities. The team looked at what happened pre -border, at the border, and post -border. The role 
turned out to be really useful for the Ministry of Health participants who were also part of the national 
COVID planning Committee . The other observations on the walk -throughs were shared with the 
public and private sectors through a series of briefings, where their feedback was obtained and ideas 
were explored. A guideline and published fact sheet were divulged, rather unexpectedly,  before they 
were finalized as the Ministry of Health received notice that a consignment of COVID -19 vaccines 
was due to arrive in Tonga. Despite only three hours advance notice, the expedited process was 
completed and able to release the vaccines on arriv al. As a last step, the guidelines and fact sheets 
were finalized and approved by our Minister.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.5.  To recap, the four main observations from the walk -through approach were:  
1) Walk through of the end -to-end approval, import clearance and logistics processes was  
invaluable for the lead team;  
2) agency coordination and understanding of the regulatory requirements enhanced and 
enabled quick mobilization for expedited clearance of the first consignment of COVID 
vaccines (completed within 3 hours);  
3) fact sheets for comme rcial importers and private importers will be useful for donors;  
4) consultations further enhanced the engagement that was commenced during the 
development of the TFA Roadmap.  
8.6.  The tangible outputs from the expedited clearance for the imports of vaccines comprised 
three  documents – import procedures for vaccines, medicine, and medical products and the fact 
sheets for commercial importation and for private importation. Given that approximately  60% of 
import consignments into Tonga are from private importations, the lead team also decided to develop 
the fact sheets for the private importations of the medicines. The lead team, in closing off this first 
stage of the initiative, identified that further facilitation measures including authorized operator s and 
enhanced internal coordination within the Ministry of Health could make a positive difference.  
8.7.  Tonga's TFA roadmap is based on the 2012 national trade facilitation strategy and roadmap of 
Greece.  
8.8.  We have reflected on the work carried out under this  project and the major lessons learned 
from the project are:  
• Establishing a small multi -agency lead team was a key success factor.  
• Establishing a structured schedule of working group sessions with outcomes for each activity 
ensured focus. The World Bank Gr oup held online meetings with the lead team and in turn, 
the lead team engaged the private and public sectors in series of workshops in addition to 
side visits  
• Ministry of Health participants were key participants and identified improvements within their 
agency.  
• Physical walk throughs were enlightening. The lead team learned that there are good 
tracking systems with international air trade. Sometimes policy and practice are not always 
aligned and closer coordination between the main border agency and Minist er of Health make 
a positive difference. The fact sheets are more than an explanation of the clearance process. 
They were specifically developed to align steps in the input clearance procedure, to promote 
the use of contact points for further information, to clarify the requirements and usefulness 
of expedited processes to enable senders of donated goods to know what their requirements 
are, and to address the experience of vaccines inappropriately packaged being detained 
upon arrival.  
8.9.  The delegate of the United States :  
8.10.  The United States would like to thank Tonga for this very broad and informative presentation. 
It is interesting how fast things have moved over the last four years and also using the COVID 
vaccine model for your presentation was very real -time, real -life, and greatly appreciated.  
8.11.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
8.12.  We would like to congratulate Tonga very warmly for the presentation. It was extremely 
informative and concrete, which helps relay an understanding of how  Tonga proceeded, its successful 
implementation of all of the steps and how the lead team impacted the successful process. Regarding 
the lessons learned, the different angles that were very useful for proceeding on expedited clearance 
is an important one. You mentioned that these successful experiences have led to a better 
understanding on a political level and maybe on other levels of the requirements for implementation 
of the TFA. Would you have any additional elements to share with us as to your future a ctivities in 
this regard?  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.13.  The presenter from Tonga  indicated the following:  
8.14.  Tonga is working together with the World Bank in looking to work together with the Ministry 
of Revenue and Customs in the Authorized Operator project. At the moment, it is still u nder 
discussion because the Ministry of Revenue and Customs have already embarked on some projects 
regarding this and are still reviewing in what ways to assist them. That is the way going forward 
currently. We are very fortunate and grateful for the help of the World Bank team. We will continue 
to work to ensure that activities in our trade facilitation role will be continuously monitored and 
implemented.  
8.15.  The delegate from Trinidad and Tobago  indicated the following:  
8.16.  Thank you very much to Tonga for the presentation. We were pleased to see that you were 
attentive to the needs of the private sector and developed the fact sheet. We wanted to commend 
you for that and think that we can try a lot of this in our country as well.  
8.17.  The representative of Cambodia , Mr Chea SAMNANG, Deputy Director of the International 
Custom Cooperation Department and member of Cambodia's National Trade Facilitation Committee , 
made a presentation on Cambodia 's experience with implementation of category C provisions and 
the technical  and financial assistance needed. He indicated the following:  
8.18.  Cambodia has successfully made seven notifications regarding categories A, B and C in 
accordance with the obligations and the timelines of a developing country. The first notification 
indicated that 60% of TFA provisions were in Category A and four years later in 2021, that had 
increased to 82%. We have notified other obligations such as indicative and definitive dates of 
category B provisions, indicative dates of category C provisions and contac t points for the 
implementation and arrangement of technical assistance. The notification of definitive dates in 
category C will be a challenge for Cambodia. While Cambodia is receiving technical assistance and 
financial assistance for implementation of th e approved provision of the TFA, the support is focusing 
on technical assistance while our category C provisions now lean more towards requiring financial 
assistance, including the development of software, ICT, and other infrastructures. Without adequate 
financial assistance, we are going to face challenges in notifying the definitive dates in Category C.  
8.19.  Let me go to the existing cooperation that we have received so far from development partners, 
international donors, bilateral donors, regional donors. Th e EU have been the most active donors in 
supporting Cambodia's implementation of the TFA, so this is a key support provided. The EU first 
provided financial support to develop the risk management system; it provides financial support for 
organizing worksho ps on the national single window, pre -arrival processing; it provides support on 
printing documents including on the transit systems and the roadmap of the NCTF; supporting the 
development of the NCTF website and the National Trade Repository, as well as s upporting the 
Secretariat to organize the first meeting of NCTF.  
8.20.  Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) also provides support by providing a long -term 
custom expert to be based in existing Cambodian customs. JICA assists in implementing some of 
the TFA provisions and provides support by conducting the time release study in 2021. JICA initiated 
the concept note of Activities of SHV Freeport in Cambodia, supports research on cross -border 
management such as Bavet and Poi Pet, with other borders with Vi et Nam and Thailand. JICA also 
supports the preparation of publications such as strategies of customs enforcement, ICT strategy, 
and Law and Regulation of Free Zones.  
8.21.  Recently UNCTAD also started to assist Cambodia on the implementation of the TFA. We hav e 
successfully completed the UNCTAD program me on trade facilitation which involved the NTFC 
members, Secretariat members, and also the head of the development panel. We benefited greatly 
from this and our team was able to use this input to draft and finali ze our roadmap which was 
adopted recently in the first NTFC meeting. The Reform Tracker is being currently implemented. It 
is a beneficial tool for Cambodia to track and manage the reform program under the TFA, and it also 
helps us to evaluate performance.  Other projects will soon start once these two projects are 
completed. Thailand has also provided technical assistance on Customs law through the Review 
Strategy of Customs Reform Management.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.22.  We have other development partners, such as Global Alliance on T rade Facilitation which is 
represented in Cambodia by Swiss Contact, and we are in our inception phrase "Initiated support on 
Interface Postal UPU and ASYCUDA", which allows us to start the pre -arrival processing of postal 
items. The WCO are very supportiv e in providing capacity building for Cambodia and implementing 
the TFA, especially the Mercado program me that provides Cambodia with a diagnostic study. It also 
established the action plan for the TFA implementation for customs and it provides other custom s 
technical training. The WCO also supports the TTAS system and they provided support for the 
time-release study in 2019 and 2021. The World Bank has assisted Cambodia in the past in the 
Trade Facilitation Capacity Project and Trade Development Support Pro ject, which supports 
particular systems in terms of customs automation in Cambodia. It also produced a national single 
windows blueprint. Currently, the World Bank is not active in providing support to Cambodia and we 
would like to take this opportunity to  invite the World Bank to consider how it can continue to support 
the implementation of the single window. The Asian Development Bank also provided consultants in 
supporting the time release study of 2019 and conducted the research to evaluate the cargo tr acking 
project in 2019.  
8.23.  The single window is one of the most important and difficult provisions to implement. 
Cambodia has implemented it in a 3 -phase approach. We started phase 1 by connecting Customs 
and the Ministry of Commerce regarding copies of certi ficate of origin and we are about to finish 
phase 2, which is expanding the single window into other government agencies, including the 
Development Council, Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. 
Now we are about to lau nch phase 3 of the national single window to expand it to other government 
agencies.  
8.24.  Because of a lack of technical and financial assistance, the national single window was fully 
financed by the Government. The Ministry of Agriculture also intended to joi n the single window but 
they failed to do so as they required more technical assistance on capacity building for staff and for 
the private sector.  
8.25.  Phase 3 will expand the single window to other official government agencies. The estimated 
cost for phase 3 is about USD 3 million and the confirmed pricing is depending on the number of 
modules and the functionalities of phase 3. I would like to take this  opportunity to also invite the 
donors, especially the World Bank and our donors from Annex D organizations on how to engage 
and help Cambodia in implementing the phase 3 of the National Single Window.  
8.26.  With regard to Article 7.7, Trade Facilitation Measur es for Authorized Operators, Cambodia 
implemented a similar scheme, what we call the Vice Trader Incentive Mechanism 2015. In 2014, 
this was the Unilateral Incentive Scheme, which covered eight companies and was provided by 
Customs to the importer and expo rter. Currently, 43 companies are accredited as best traders. 
Cambodia wants to migrate the system to an Authorized Economic Operators program, so we are 
conducting the bidding BTIM system baseline assessment to identify the gaps between the Best 
Trader Me chanism and the standards of the AEO system. Currently, the EU is assisting Cambodia on 
the baseline assessment of the action plan on the strategy to establish the AEO and AYSCUDA, by 
providing a consultant to help on the establishment of the AEO system. G aps have been identified 
in technical and financial assistance that is needed to develop the ICT infrastructure for the AEO 
system itself – the application process, the accreditation process, and the control – and also for the 
ASYCUDA Module for Best Trade r, AEO Program.  
8.27.  Article 7.1 on Pre -Arrival Processing (PAP) also heavily involves the ICT infrastructure. The 
pre-arrival clearance procedure was introduced in Cambodia in 2019. So far, only 257 SADs have 
been using this procedure, due to a lack of advanc ed information resulting from a lack of ICT 
infrastructure for exchanging information. Under the Digitizing Global Maritime Trade project 
(DGMT), Tradelen is connected with ASYCUDA through ASYHUB. However, the advance cargo 
manifest received is not suitabl e for the PAP. Currently, the GDCE is working on the connection 
between ASYCUDA and UPU and other customs declaration systems. We have two donors working 
on this PAP. The EU ARISE Plus is assisting customs on the DGMT, which is a Pre -Arrival process on 
maritime cargo. The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and Swisscontact are working with GCDE 
on the linkage between ASYCUDA and UPA/CDS for information exchange on postal items. During 
the NTFC meeting, we identified technical and financial assistant gap s that need to be filled to fully 
develop the Pre -Arrival Processing system. Further work remains to complete the Advanced Cargo 
manifest information from Tradelens and have it suitable for the PAP, as well as also updating the 
PAP functionality in ASYCUDA . G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.28.  On border agencies and other areas in Category C, Cambodia has concluded many 
memoranda of understanding with other trading partners, especially with neighbouring countries, 
Thailand and Viet Nam. We also need to implement a regional agreement, called a cross-border 
transport agreement (CBTA). So far, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is willing to support the 
implementation of this agreement but we still have identified the financial and technical assistance 
gap for fully implementing the CBTA, especially  the single -stop inspection and common customs 
area. This would include the alignment of working hours and customs procedures at the border.  
8.29.  Regarding transit, Article 11.5 encourages Members to make available a physically separate 
infrastructure for tran sit. Cambodia has identified the financial assistance for the development of 
separate infrastructure for transit but currently there is no expression of interest in providing the 
necessary support.  
8.30.  Turning to notifications, following the establishment of t he NTFC in 2020, the role and 
responsibility for submitting notifications was shifted from the Ministry of Commerce to this 
Committee . We are now working on preparing notifications for submission in cooperation with the 
Ministry of Commerce through the Per manent Mission of Cambodia in Geneva.   
8.31.  Looking ahead to full implementation, this is based on the National Roadmap for Trade 
Facilitation 2022 -2025, which was recently adopted in the first meeting of the NCTF on 
11 October  2021. The vision of the roadmap is to maximize the Trade Facilitation Agreement for 
accelerating economic competitiveness and trade growth. The mission is to ensure full 
implementation of the TFA to facilitate legitimate trade and travel, and transform the trade 
ecosystem to reduce the t ime and cost of doing business and trade.  
8.32.  In order to achieve the roadmap's full strategy, the first step is to ensure the proper 
institutional arrangements by ensuring the effective functioning of the NCTF secretariat. Without this 
body we cannot coordin ate and manage the whole program. The second step is to ensure full 
compliance with the TFA. Our roadmap included not only the category B and C provisions, but it also 
included category A provisions. Since we notified category A provisions, various changes  have taken 
place in trade and environment, technology and changes brought by the prolonged pandemic. These 
have impacted on some of the category A provisions. Because there is still room for improvement in 
the implementation of category A provisions, Camb odia's roadmap focuses not only on category B 
and C provisions, but still includes category A provisions. The first strategy is to collaborate with 
government agencies, the private sector, and development Partners that provide support to 
Cambodia's impleme ntation.  
8.33.  In order for Cambodia to benefit from donor cooperation program mes, to improve the 
capacity, experience and expertise of the members and official NCTF Secretariat and to keep up the 
implementation of the provision of TFA, the remaining challenge is that while donor support is mostly 
limited to technical assistance and capacity building, Cambodia 's remaining provisions require 
financial support. We expected that the donor community, especially the Annex D organizations, 
would consider providing som e flexibility in providing financial support for the development and 
operation of ICT infrastructure. To recall, paragraph 6 of Annex D provided that support and technical 
assistance should be provided to help developing countries and least developed count ries implement 
their commitments resulting from the negotiations. I would like to encourage the development 
partners to give flexibility to consider shifting from technical assistance and capacity building to 
financial support that is needed by most of LDC s.  
8.34.  The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
8.35.  Thank you very much to our Cambodian colleagues for your excellent presentation and the 
very comprehensive analysis and explanation of the situation on the trade facilitation processes in 
Cambodia. Thank you for the expression of appreciation for the EU support during the AEO Program. 
As many of you may know the program me is our flagship program me to support the promotion of 
trade facilitation. We are an ASEAN partner, so we are very happy to be recognized as a relevant 
partner for the Cambodian trade facilitation process. We aim to have a more resilient and more 
sustainable Cambodian economy by ma inly targeting two objectives, supporting the Government 
with technical assistance and capacity building to facilitate trade and integration and supporting 
MSMEs to integrate into the regional and global value chains which is very important for the EU and 
for the entire international community. We cannot forget the strong link between trade facilitation G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  and creating the conditions at a national level for a service to grow and thrive. Regarding your 
request for not only technical assistance and capacity buil ding but also financial support, I would 
like to note that the EU and its member States remain the biggest donors of budget support. We 
stand ready to provide additional support to Cambodia and to all developing and least developed 
countries, to further di scuss and engage on anything that is related to trade facilitation. Finally, the 
EU delegation in Phnom Penh is available to meet with you to discuss further the main challenges 
and issues on which we can work together.  
8.36.  The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
8.37.  The United States would like to thank Cambodia for its extensive, detailed, and informative 
presentation. We would like to congratulate you on the implementation of moving your commitments 
into Category A from 60% to 82%.  
8.38.  The deleg ate of the Togo indicated the following:  
8.39.  We also wish to thank Cambodia for its informative presentation and for telling us about their 
experience with trade facilitation. Implementation of the TFA in Cambodia seems similar to that in 
Togo. We are very in terested in the National Trade Compendium developed by Cambodia, as Togo 
is also getting ready to develop one of these compendia to compile information on small and medium 
size enterprises. We would be grateful if Cambodia could tell us more about this com pendium and 
make it available to us for use as a source of inspiration.  
8.40.  The delegate of the Trinidad and Tobago  indicated the following:  
8.41.  We note that your experience in establishing your single window is very similar to our 
situation. We did a step -by-step approach and just like your country, we used a national budget for 
the first stage. Like you, we realized that we needed additional financial support and so for our 
second stage we approached a regional development bank, the Inter -American Development Ba nk, 
for final aid. That financing is all to cover a lot of things that we could not get from the typical donor 
provider. Perhaps that is a suggestion that you can pursue, though of course we know that there 
may be certain disadvantages to that approach. I just wanted to say thank you very much for your 
very informative presentation and we wish you all the best for the implementation.  
8.42.  The representative of The World Bank  said that the World Bank would welcome the 
opportunity to discuss with Cambodia how it c an provide additional assistance with technical 
assistance but with also additional financing.  
8.43.  The representative of Cambodia  indicated the following:  
8.44.  Thanks to the previous speakers for their congratulations for Cambodia. Regarding Togo's 
question on SME s, Cambodia's Customs have designed what we call a Custom Incentive Program 
for SMEs and we also add tax incentives. Now we can also start to engage the small and medium 
enterprises through our e -commerce programme. So the pre -arrival processing, expedited  
shipments and e -commerce is an example of how we integrate the small and medium enterprises 
into the global business. I also take the opportunity to thank the EU and World Bank for giving us 
the opportunity to keep in touch with you. It is important to co mmunicate with the World Bank and 
the EU in Phnom Penh and in Geneva to work together on how we can identify the common ground 
on which to work together.  
8.45.  A representative of the European Union Commission 's Directorate -general for International 
Partnerships  made a presentation as follows:  
8.46.  As you are fully aware, the global community is facing particular challenges caused by the 
COVID -19 pandemic. COVID -19 has widened the SDG financing gap as developing country resources 
have been dramatically reduced, while on the contrary they need to be increased and expanded. At 
the same time, trade between the EU and developing countries excluding China contracted by 
EUR 100 billion between 2019 and 2020. We have seen, in the global external shock the pandemic 
brought, th at LDCs are suffering the most, but they are still not getting enough Aid for Trade (AfT). 
The COVID -19 pandemic has brought an economic crisis, has hindered growth and has disrupted 
trade and value as well as supply chains, so it has had a global impact. For the EU, the provision G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  and reinforcement of AfT, under which we provide support to trade facilitation, remains crucial to 
help build back better, to boost exports and to assist our partner developing countries to become 
more resilient to any future such  shocks should they arise. AfT is useful to address the difficulties 
that may originate from systemic or structural challenges and to be prepared to counter various 
imports related measures, including climate related ones. Also, trade facilitation is cruci al to 
accelerate economic recovery. Smooth and efficient import, export and transit procedures are key 
to boost trade flows again, to keep value and supply chains working and to keep trade flowing also 
in tormented times like we have witnessed last year an d that have not fully finished yet – the 
COVID -19 pandemic. In this particular situation, we are all going through in the context of the 
pandemic; trade facilitation and specifically the implementation of the WTO TFA are our allies to help 
rebuild damaged economies through more efficient and streamlined border and customs procedures. 
Our AfT, including AfT supporting the TFA, is increasingly focused on countering current times 
challenges. As a result, we have focused on COVID recovery, greening of our AfT, increased social 
and environmental sustainability and supporting digitalisation. We are convinced that our AfT 
assistance for more sustainable, greener and digitali zed economies also support the TFA 
simultaneously. In the recent years, we have launched and  run worldwide AfT programmes 
supporting trade facilitation and social and environmental sustainability as well as digitali zation. (You 
can find their comprehensive overview by topic in our annual AfT progress report).  
8.47.  The EU and our member States, with E UR 17.9 bn volume of Aid for Trade (according to the 
latest available OECD CRS data, for 2019), are the first world AfT donor, providing well over one  third 
of global AfT (38%). In 2019, the latest year for which OECD data is available, the EU and our 
member States provided EUR  232 million for trade facilitation, which stands for 48% of world's TF 
support. Since the entry into force of the TFA in 2017, the EU and its member States have committed 
to mobilize at least EUR  400 million in trade facilitation ass istance over a five -year period, including 
for projects improving developing countries' customs systems. EU and EU MS commitments for trade 
facilitation from 2017 to 2019 (latest year for which we have the OECD data available) already 
amounted to EUR  630 m illion. The European Commission has given itself a specific threshold for the 
Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014 -20 to dedicate EUR 240 million for trade facilitation 
over the time of the MFF. The cumulative value from 2014 -2019 was EUR 423.7 milli on, by far 
exceeding the commitment to WTO at a time of signature of the TFA.  
8.48.  As you know, we produce a yearly report on our EU member States, Aid for Trade. I would 
like to share some conclusions on Trade Facilitation that we can extract from last year's  report. We 
found that in 2020, 32% of the EU Delegations surveyed this year said that they have been either 
"extremely", or "considerably" solicited to support the implementation of WTO TFA Category C 
provisions: 35% of respondents said it was "moderate" and 33% had only slight or non -existent 
demand for them: 43% of our partner countries did not request EU support for the National 
Committee  for Trade Facilitation with a role of donor coordinator. Let me use this opportunity to 
invite all our developing pa rtners to pursue seeking our assistance on WTO TFA. Our EU Delegations 
are the primary contact points for WTO TFA aid requests, and we stand ready to support you. At the 
EU we are extremely grateful to the countries that notified the WTO as regards gaps in  assistance 
needed to implement Category C commitments. This helps us especially as currently we are in the 
process of programming our cooperation and assistance for the new EU Multiannual Financial 
Framework 2021 -27. We can of course best target our aid w here we know gaps exists and what 
remains to be done. It is equally important to coordinate between donors in order to avoid duplication 
of assistance or on the contrary: lack of action. For the same reasons, let me finish by stressing 
two important aspect s for successful support and collaboration. We need partner countries to 
cooperate with our Delegations in the field and for partner countries to notify us at the EU of an 
assistance needed to implement Category C commitments under the WTO TFA.  
8.49.  The represe ntative of Finland  indicated the following:  
8.50.  Finland places great importance on trade facilitation, as for example, infrastructure - and 
logistics -related challenges can be serious bottlenecks for economic development and enhancing 
regional cooperation. Dur ing recent years, Finland has been funding several regional and multilateral 
trade development projects. Our funding is channelled mainly through Multilateral Agencies, e.g. the 
WCO, that have the required expertise to deliver technical assistance in trade  facilitation. Today I 
would like to especially highlight our long -standing support to the TradeMark East Africa (TMEA). 
TMEA works closely with East African Community (EAC) institutions, national governments, the 
private sector and civil society organizat ions in order increase trade and unlock economic potential. 
TMEA operates on a not -for-profit basis and is funded by the development agencies of various G/TFA/M/19  
 
- 24 - 
 
  countries. The cooperation aims at advancing trade and supporting regional trade integration within 
East African Community (EAC) e.g. by reducing the time and cost of transiting and transporting 
goods. Improving conditions for women to participate in trade is also a central part of the strategy 
of the TradeMark East Africa and important for Finland. Our sup port to the TMEA for the years 
2021-2024 totals EUR  10.5 million and aims to help revive and boost trade in the region following 
the decline caused by the pandemic. Finland has also provided support for the TMEA's COVID -19 
response programme. The Finnish Government believes that the combination of supporting regional 
trade and assistance to the private sector will accelerate economic growth and support job creation, 
with the ultimate goal of poverty reduction. I am happy to provide more information bilatera lly for 
those interested.  
8.51.  The representative of France  indicated the following:  
8.52.  I would first like to mention the role of Customs in an open international market. Responsible 
for managing the flow of merchandise, as well as the collection of customs dutie s, Customs 
authorities play a crucial role in the implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which aims 
to prevent trade friction, which can hinder trade. Also, it is of primordial importance to underscore 
their importance, particularly in develop ing countries, by providing them with the technical 
assistance necessary to comply with the Trade Facilitation Agreement and, in extenso, to promote 
their economic development. From this viewpoint, France and the European Union finance a technical 
assistan ce program me implemented by Expertise France in Guinea: the project for supporting fiscal 
administration, known as PACCAF, which helps Guinean customs in the various parts of their 
operation for authorized economic operators. Trade facilitation measures fo r authorized operators 
echoes Article 7 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. Within the framework of PACCAF, Expertise 
France aims to highlight the commercial benefits linked to Article 7 of the Trade Facilitation 
Agreement, which has been re transcribed i nto the Guinean Code. In fact, for the private sector as 
well as for the public sector, setting up an expedited procedure for enterprises, which respect the 
regulations made, makes it possible to create a virtuous circle in which the private sector is 
encouraged to respect the rules in order to be more competitive, to exceed, to access more 
international markets and to increase international national trade. For customs, this makes it 
possible to make more fluid contacts with virtuous firms and exercise cont rol over so called "at risk 
cases", such as those that are shy of applying the rules. Expertise France makes it possible for 
Guinean customs agents to evaluate candidate enterprises to become "authorized agents" in order 
to study the financial health of th eir enterprises. More globally, technical assistance indicates the 
fact that France and the European Union are ready to assist the development of countries that wish 
to obtain technical assistance in order to comply their WTO commitments. Indeed, building a 
multilateral and inclusive trading system remains a priority. Thank you for your attention and I 
remain at your disposal for any further information.  
8.53.  The representative of the Netherlands  indicated the following:  
8.54.  The Netherlands favo urs an open, rules-based global trade and investment system, as trade 
and investments are engines for economic growth and creation of jobs. We believe that all countries 
should benefit from trade and are therefore among the major supporters of Aid for Trade, with 
progr ams that achieve impact on the ground and with a long -time focus on trade facilitation and a 
new focus on digitalization. Today we want to specifically emphasize the opportunity of digitalization 
in trade facilitation to give SMEs better access to the bene fits of trade. Improving SMEs economic 
opportunities and removing barriers to their participation in digital trade is a key component in 
pursued of economic development and achieving fairer and beneficial outcomes for all. We 
strengthen digital trade and t he position of SMEs in e -commerce, such as via Centre for the 
Promotion of Imports (CBI), ITC, TradeMark East Africa, the Trade Facilitation West -Africa 
program me and the UNCTAD eTrade for Women, eTrade for all and pilots for implementation of the 
eTrade R eadies in Benin and Uganda. Also, in support of at -the-border reforms such as improving 
customs procedures, through paperless trade and automation solutions, the efficient flow of goods 
and services, digital payments, digital customs connectivity, and with  special emphasis on inclusion 
and facilitation of informal small -scale cross border trade to reduce poverty and inequality through 
enhanced trade.  
8.55.  A practical example, we would like to share, is the Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF) program me, 
managed by the International Trade Centre (ITC) where we recently launched the fifth 4 -year 
program me. I would therefore like to give the word to ITC to explain how the NTF program me 
contributes to trade facilitation with a special focus on digitalization.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.56.  The represent ative of the ITC indicated the following:  
8.57.  It is my honour to take part in this meeting upon the invitation of the permanent mission of 
the Netherlands. I would like to share with you a few examples of the work that we at the ITC have 
been undertaking in th e area of trade facilitation, with a focus on digitalization as a tool and digital 
technology as a sector contributing to trade facilitation. I will first start by sharing with you a little 
bit of background on the Netherland's Trust Fund Program me, as thi s program me will contribute 
substantially to the work of Trade Facilitation. The Netherland's Trust Fund Program me builds on a 
long series of NTF program mes funded by the Government of the Netherlands. The current 
program me will run from July 2021 to June 2025, and the program me is based on a partnership 
agreement signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the ITC. The ambition of 
NTF V is to contribute to building back better, with a focus on MSMEs, digital technologies and the 
agribusiness sectors, and wit h a focus on linking the two sectors, vicinities and business 
opportunities. We hope to implement the NTF V program me in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, 
Mali, Senegal, and Uganda, together with local partner institutions and with a Dutch center for the 
promotion of exports from developing countries CBI.  
8.58.  The ITC and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands have aligned development 
projects and approaches to facilitate trade for lasting positive impacts. Under the NTF V program me, 
we intend t o address activities related to trade facilitation. Trade facilitation is an important lever to 
not only achieve better trade, but also to achieve broader developmental impact. At ITC, we work 
with other technical teams, including non -tariff measures (NTM)  team, which has a specific focus on 
also understanding services through its various trade services practice. This practice focuses on 
understanding which services trade measures may restrict trade, and therefore become services 
trade barriers. To provide assistance to trade facilitation for services, ITC's NTM team analyses the 
obstacles faced by ITC companies by interviewing the companies to understand the regulatory 
obstacles these companies face in their daily international operations. On average, aroun d 75% of 
the interviewed IT companies indicated that they do indeed face barriers to services trade. The team 
also had consultations with other stakeholders, including sector organizations and other involved 
organizations. At the end of this work, a report  will be produced and published to provide a reference 
document that will be forwarded to institutions to implement a roadmap to address some of these 
challenges.  
8.59.  We also started on NTF IV, the predecessor to NTF V, which ran from 2017 -2021, also to 
focus on our gender -lens on trade facilitation and the other program me we worked on SheTrades, 
to assist the business environment for women entrepreneurs in a number of countries, including 
trade facilitation issues, using our developed tool which we called She Trade Outlook. We will continue 
this work until 2025. Some of the indicators we measured included the availability of a single 
electronic window interface for women to use and Customs having adopted the WCO gender -
sensitive guidelines. SheTrade also delive rs training for women entrepreneurs on logistics with trade 
promotion organizations, and the goal there was to provide women entrepreneurs with practical 
skills to trade across borders and deal with trade procedures.  
8.60.  Beyond NTF, the ITC is also actively i nvolved in the development of ICT solutions to provide 
access to information in relation to trade facilitation. What you see on the slide are some screenshots 
of our work. Our trade facilitation team has also been contributing to the development of trade 
processes and documents. Seventeen portals have been successfully implemented around the world 
with an average of 50,000 online visits in each country every year providing practical information 
on cross -border formalities to traders.  
8.61.  The representative of Sweden  indicated the following:  
8.62.  Let me start by thanking the European Commission for coordinating the interventions of some 
of the EU member States. As member of the EU, I would like to reiterate what has been mentioned 
by Sweden in previous years in this  context, in that Sweden is a firm believer of multilateralism in 
general and that we contribute in various ways, methods, and channels to the implementation 
particularly of the TFA. The provisions on the systems and support for capacity building of develo ping 
and least developed countries members in the TFA are clear and I would like to share with the 
Committee  some of the Swedish contributions.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.63.  To put the Swedish support into context, the Swedish Policy Framework for Development 
Cooperation and Humanitar ian Assistance recognizes free and fair -trade including trade facilitation 
as an important part of this endeavour. Free and fair trade is a powerful tool for sustainable economic 
growth, development and poverty reduction. However, many people living in low  and middle -income 
countries have limited capacity and possibility to utilize the potential that lies in trade – which is why 
aid for trade towards trade facilitation are key enablers to contribute to this.  
8.64.  In 2020, Sweden contributed approximately USD 420 million ( SEK 3.7 billion) to the 
international Aid for Trade agenda and supports partner countries in their efforts to use trade as a 
means for development. The aid for trade going towards trade facilitation in particular is currently 
mainly done at a re gional level in Sub -Saharan Africa, and through multilateral partners such as the 
Enhanced Integrated Framework, the World Bank Umbrella Trust Fund for Trade and the 
International Trade Centre.  
8.65.  Trade facilitation is one of our prioritized areas and this i ncludes addressing both the hard 
and soft constraints for effectively participating in trade. We would like to illustrate this by 
mentioning a long and fruitful collaboration with the World Customs Organization, which lies within 
our regional aid for trade  support in Africa. In 2020, we signed a new agreement with the WCO on 
Customs Modernization in Sub -Saharan Africa for the period 2020 -22, approximately USD  4.2 million 
(SEK 37 million). This new agreement is the third phase of collaboration with the WCO, which is a 
longstanding partner to Sweden in Sub -Saharan Africa.  
8.66.  I would like to mention some of the results from the previous phases of our collaboration with 
the WCO, which includes accreditation of regional Authorised Economic Operators, IT connectivit y 
and risk management, and the prevention of trade in endangered species. To give a very concrete 
example, as a result of the previous phases, we saw that perishable imports have been going straight 
to store rather than being held up at the border, which r esulted in reduced wastage rates and 
increased sales. This kind of concrete impact can make a difference for companies and people in the 
partner countries. From previous phases we learned from the WCO that there were some lessons 
learned in order to implem ent the TFA effectively. These lessons include political will and 
commitment, private sector consultation and buy -in, the crucial role of National TF Committee s, and 
ensuring that TFA considerations are fully integrated into national -level strategic and mo dernization 
plans.  
8.67.  Turning to the new phase, which was signed last year at the WCO, the focus is on trade 
facilitation, IT -connectivity, green Customs, regional harmonization, gender equality, integrity, and 
anti-corruption. Geographically, the new phase targets two regional economic communities: five of 
the six members of the EAC (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi) and 7 members of 
SADC (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe).  
8.68.  Sweden 's support to the World Bank is  roughly USD  20.3 million ( SEK 175 million) for the 
period 2017 -22, which includes the Trade Facilitation Support Program me. Earlier this year, the 
World Bank for instance, completed research on trade facilitation challenges for women traders in 
the Pacifi c Islands and Timor -Leste. In particular, they found that the benefits of trade facilitation 
often impact men and women differently. More specifically, women -led businesses face greater 
challenges in that fewer women are represented in trade associations, fewer women are aware that 
customs allows pre -declaration of shipments prior to arrival. Evidence based research is really key 
to get a good understanding of the challenges, bottlenecks and circumstances around trade 
facilitation and has led to a number of  recommendations from the World Bank to improve trade 
facilitation policies to better address women trader's needs. These recommendations include 
improving access to and the quality of information on border -related processes and procedures and 
strengthenin g the system for electronic payments, among others.  
8.69.  One of the Swedish International Development Cooperation's focus on addressing the poorest 
also underlines our support to the Enhanced Integrated Framework as an entity dedicated to 
assisting LDCs in part icular. As one of the major donors to the EIF with approximately USD  17 million 
(SEK 150 million) for the period of 2017 -22, Sweden also supports the EIF's work on trade 
facilitation.  
8.70.  Let me conclude by mentioning how important a forum such as the Trade Fa cilitation 
Committee  here at the WTO is vital for sharing experiences and for us to be able to assess the G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  demand and needs from partner countries. Sweden remains a committed partner in supporting 
developing countries in their efforts to integrate into inte rnational trade and the global economy.  
8.71.  The delegate of Norway  indicated the following:  
8.72.  I would like to thank the European Commission and the member States. I also thank the ITC 
for giving its excellent presentation, it is really useful to see how trade f acilitation really works out 
in the field.  
8.73.  The delegate of Nepal  indicated the following:  
8.74.  The LDC group recognizes, with great interest and appreciation the information presented by 
Cambodia and Tonga. Their experiences, accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned are 
useful for all Members. Similarly, the LDC group extends sincere appreciation to the delegates of the 
European Commission and member States from Finland, France, Sweden, Netherlands, and the 
official from ITC for updating their initiati ves and interests in implementation after the Trade 
Facilitation Agreement. We sincerely appreciate all of the support extended to those interventions.  
8.75.  The delegate of Togo indicated the following:  
8.76.  Togo has also embarked upon trade facilitation reform to try to pave the way for trade. This 
commitment has given rise to the ratification of the TFA and a series of actions. The categorization 
exercise made it possible to designate 16 provisions in category A, 12 in category B and 8 in 
category  C. This stage wa s also followed by the notification of the indicative dates and final dates 
for category B measures and also the notification obligations which we can find in Article 1.4, 10.4.3, 
10.6.2, and 12.2.2. As you know, the implementation of the TFA is an ongoing  process done in a 
dynamic manner, which means that there has to be very rigorous planning and monitoring of a 
number of indicators that give us an idea regarding the state of play of implementation commitments 
of Members. This being the case, Togo with th e backing of UNCTAD and technical and financial 
assistance from the World Bank Group, established a trade facilitation roadmap in 2019 which 
includes an action plan for the period of 2019 -22, in keeping with the national development plan.  
8.77.  One of the objec tives set in this roadmap is to implement at least 75% of the TFA provisions. 
So in this way, over and above the 16 measures identified in Category A, Togo has reached a level 
of implementation of implementation commitments of 44%.  
8.78.  It is thanks to the fin ancial support offered by the World Bank Group, that we have developed 
a number of technical information documents. We would like to again reaffirm our heartfelt thanks 
to UNCTAD, the World Bank Group, and the World Customs Organization for the support the y have 
provided and voice an appeal for the other partners to join in supporting Togo. Technical and financial 
assistance is needed for the implementation of a trade portal, and training of Customs officers 
regarding audit measures, the acquisition of mobi le scanners and the drafting of a manual of 
harmonized procedures at the border posts. There are just a few of Togo 's needs. I would like to 
take this opportunity to thank the World Trade Organization and to also renew our heartfelt thanks 
to all of the pa rtners that have accompanied Togo in undertaking the implementation of the TFA.  
8.79.  The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
8.80.  The UK would like to thank all Members for sharing their experiences and capacity building 
for trade facilitation, which we find to be of mutual benefit to all Members for the greater cooperation 
for the implementation of the TFA. The UK has submitted a document for Article 22 Donor Assistant 
Notification (G/TFA/N/GBR/3) which provides detailed information on the trade  facilitation capacity 
building projects that the UK are funding, and which countries are being funded. We have shared 
this information as we think it would be helpful for donors, particularly those coordinating capacity 
building activities in capitals and  delivery partners to be able to consider alongside their own 
assistance. We share the view raised by the EU, that greater donor coordination on trade facilitation 
capacity building projects will bring benefits to all involved. In this regard, when the doc ument has 
been circulated, we encourage donors and delivery partners to consider the information provided 
and to reach out to the UK should they think that there are better opportunities to coordinate and 
collaborate on the provision of trade facilitation capacity building assistance. This is very much in 
the spirit of our capacity building proposal of the four -year review process, so we are hoping for G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  greater experience sharing and lesson learning between all stakeholders for greater efficiency and 
transpa rency in trade facilitation.  
8.81.  The delegate of Trinidad and Tobago  indicated the following:  
8.82.  Once again, we take the floor to thank the EU for their very informative presentation. We 
support the request for a written copy of this submission as we think it can assist our National Trade 
Facilitation Committee  in seeking support to implement our othe r category C measures. We 
particularly want to thank the EU for the support they have provided to Trinidad and Tobago and to 
the Caribbean region. We note that we have EU support through the EDF and the project is helping 
us with our enquiry point. We part icipate in the SheTrade initiative of the ITC. We acknowledge the 
support of the EU and we look forward to further collaboration as we seek to implement the TFA.  
8.83.  The delegate of Ecuador  indicated the following:  
8.84.  My delegation considers this special session , that what was raised by the Vice -Minister 
yesterday regarding the various challenges that we have to do when it comes to technical 
cooperation and assistance. Ecuador is a medium income country, and therefore our alternatives in 
the area of cooperation a re quite limited. Understanding our efforts in the country, there are some 
areas that require assistance. Our Vice -Minister mentioned these areas yesterday when it comes to 
cooperation, the condition of countries medium income requires different priorities  to be sent and 
decisions made when TF is a further issue within the framework of the bilateral and plurilateral, 
perhaps it has happened to a number of donors as well. Now the definition of these bilateral 
programs requires also contact with a number of i nternational agencies. This process of planning 
the coordination requires many months of negotiations. We have seen that this time has been cut 
down with our specific program mes for assistance, for example the Global Alliance for Trade 
Facilitation. The time invested in the upstream preparation for these programs is very important 
when it comes to complying when various measures have to be put into place within the time slots 
provided as well. This is actually where we have to learn as we go, Ecuador is preparing for a 
notification regarding some arrangements so that we can comply with the dialogue to have an 
efficient application of the TFA. I would like to thank the various spe akers of the presentation today, 
they also allow us to better understand how the other countries are working on implementing the 
TFA and the work that has been carried out by the donor countries.  
8.85.  The representative of the European Commission  indicated the  following:  
8.86.   We appreciate the collaboration we have with the other countries. To stress again our 
availability to further discuss and to further support other countries in achieving the full 
implementation of the TFA, not for the sake of the TFA in itself  but for the sake of ensuring the 
sustainable and inclusive economy. We believe trade is the main driver for sustainable and inclusive 
trade and stand ready to assist other countries, especially in the current economic circumstances 
brought by the pandemic . 
8.87.  The delegate of Japan  indicated the following:  
8.88.  Thank you very much for the very informative presentations and interventions. Taking this 
opportunity, I would like to introduce Japan's approach to assistance and support for capacity 
building. Every year,  Japan provides a voluntary contribution to the Customs Cooperation Fund, CCF, 
which was established to pursue customs cooperation program mes provided by the WCO. For 2019 
and 2020, Japan made the biggest contribution amounting to about 31% of the total co ntribution to 
the Fund. While Japan continues to contribute to the WCO's activities, we have also been providing 
bilateral Customs cooperation since 1996. Since the TFA entered into force, Japan has also been 
providing assistances with a view to promoting the implementation of the TFA. Under the COVID -19 
Pandemic, the technical assistance programs were continued online on request basis.  
8.89.  I would like to touch upon our recent activities to support the implementation of the TFA. In 
April 2021, under WCO's Merc ator program me, we held an online workshop targeted at the 
Asia-Pacific region utilizing the Fund, CCF/Japan. In the workshop, experiences related to trade 
facilitative measures under COVID -19 pandemic were shared, and Japan introduced its experiences 
about the AEO program me including the engagement with the private sectors. As for the bilateral 
Customs cooperation, in March and May, we provided technical assistance programs online, targeted G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  at Malaysian Customs. The program me was organized based on a reque st from Malaysian Customs 
for Japan to share its experiences and best practices regarding the implementation of TFA Article  7.1 
on pre -arrival processing, and Article 7.8 on expedited shipments. In response to that request, we 
shared our practices for util izing advanced data in selecting high -risk cargoes, as well as the risk 
control for expedited shipments. In response to that request, we shared our practices for utilizing 
advanced data for high -risk cargos as well as the risk controls for expedited shipme nts. Throughout 
the course of the training sessions, many questions were asked and answered. We understand that 
these sessions, by making comparisons with their own systems, help the trainees to identify issues 
to address upon their return home. In this re gard, Japan would like to congratulate Malaysia 
especially on its full implementation of Article 7.8 on expedited shipments this past June, ahead of 
the initially notified date and thank you again for the follow up notification.  
8.90.  A representative of the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation  indicated the following:  
8.91.  Our mission at the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation is to drive economic growth through 
simplifying international trade. We are supporting countries to implement their TFA and we do that 
in a way that ensures the reforms are very concrete and that they are meaningful for businesses of 
all types, including MSMEs and women -owned businesses. The public and private sector are equal 
partners in everything that we do, from project design, through  to project implementation and 
indeed the measurement of our impact.  
8.92.  Through our public and private partnership, and I would like to take the opportunity to 
acknowledge the great support that we have from our donors, the US, Canada, Germany, and 
Denmark, and I also acknowledge the private sector partners who sit on our steering group.  
8.93.  I also want to appreciate all of the global business partners who support our work more widely 
at the global level and also the hundreds of businesses, both large and small,  that support our 
projects at the national level.  
8.94.  I will take a moment to provide you with a snapshot of our activity. The amount of activity 
taking place around the world has accelerated very significantly over recent months. We are now 
implementing 31 c ountry projects and we have a further 17 in development. We are continually 
receiving requests from governments for technical assistance from the Alliance and I think that we 
received around five in the last six months alone. In addition to expanding the n umber of countries 
that we are working in, the Alliance is now developing what we now call Second or Third Generation 
projects, which enable us to go deeper in trade facilitation reforms within a particular country.  
8.95.  Some new projects have been approved in  recent months. In Bangladesh, for example, there 
is a project to digitize key processes at the former land port with India. In Colombia, we have a 
third approved project that will streamline agricultural trade whilst also strengthening compliance. 
In Jord an, we have a new project that has been approved which is focused on introducing electronic 
Certificates of Origin. In Peru, a project on improving the procedures for the certifications that 
required for exporting and importing processed food has been appr oved and in Uganda there has 
been a new project approved, which focuses on streamlining the processes in warehouses and at 
the airport focused on horticultural exports.  
8.96.  In terms of the projects that we already are implementing, we have achieved several pr oject 
milestones in the last few months. A new modernized import licensing system was launched in Brazil 
and it is now operational. We launched two new projects in Ecuador, one which will support the 
government in increasing the number of electronic servic es that are provided through the single 
window and that same project will also look at automating processes at the laboratories and sanitary 
agencies. The second project in Ecuador aims to improve processes around agricultural exports 
through the introduct ion of electronic Phytosanitary certificates. In Malawi, Parliament amended a 
Customs law related to a project that we are delivering there, which will enable a new licensing 
framework aimed at professionalizing the customs clearing agent industry, we also  signed a 
memorandum of understanding with the General Director of Environmental Health and Food Safety 
in Peru and we plan an official launch in the coming months to mark the start of our new project. 
We have also implemented guidelines across our portfol io that show that our projects are inclusive 
in terms of delivering meaningful impact for MSMEs and women -led businesses.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.97.  Indeed, a number of projects in our portfolio are targeted specifically at these segments. We 
will also be launching a series of work shops in the next couple of months aimed at understanding 
the key trade facilitation challenges facing women -led businesses in Nigeria, Guatemala, and 
Bangladesh and the solutions that are required to address these specific issues. With that I will close 
and would like to thank the Committee  for your continued interest in our work and let me also again 
thank the Members who are engaged in our work either as donors or as public governments on a 
project. Your support and engagement tool in enabling us to play  our role in the ongoing effort to 
enable any potential benefits of the TFA to be fully realized and particularly that they are realized in 
a way that benefits business from micro enterprises to the multinationals.  
8.98.  A representative of the International Tra de Center  indicated the following:  
8.99.  Thank you for providing this opportunity to share with the Members ITC assistance to the 
developing and LDCs in the area of TF. ITC has contributed to and shared a summary of its technical 
assistance in the area of trade  facilitation and TFA implementation in the Annex D+ report circulated 
by the WTO TF Committee  before the meeting. During the past few years, following the entry into 
force of the TFA, the international community, specifically agencies and donors, have bee n very 
active in supporting countries in their journey to implement the TFA. This is acknowledged and 
appreciated by the beneficiaries and reinforces their trust in the WTO as an institution and 
multilateralism as the right option for addressing poverty re duction through sustained and efficient 
trade.  
8.100.   However, as countries have now moved from ratification, categorization and implementation 
roadmaps to actual deep implementation of TFA measures, the depth of technical assistance and 
financial resources must match the needs and expectations of our beneficiaries. ITC has promptly 
adapted to beneficiaries' requirements, expanding the breadth and depth of its technical assistance 
and that was only possible through generous support from our donors especially the E U, UK, Sweden, 
Switzerland , the Netherlands, Germany and others.  
8.101.   Not only countries' maturity and capacity to implement the TFA has triggered an evolution 
of our technical assistance, but also the COVID -19 pandemic has brought about new challenges. The 
countries consider trade facilitation instruments and reforms as part of solution along with other 
trade policy reforms.  
8.102.   ITC currently offers a comprehensive range of services towards implementation of the TFA, 
factoring in the business perspective and cont inuous engagement and cooperation between public 
and private stakeholders. One aspect of our assistance that I would like to highlight is the TFA funds 
are beneficial to the Members, it is as equally important that the private businesses and especially 
the MSMEs, they must comply to those requirements and those procedures in an efficient manner. 
The ITC has a systemic program me that can help MSMEs to comply with the newly establishes 
requirements.  
8.103.   ITC has a sound record of practical support to TFA implemen tation worldwide, engineering 
reforms from design to implementation to feedback analysis. Establishment or enhancement of 
Trade Facilitation Portals (TFPs) in collaboration with UNCTAD (Article 1) in more than 17 countries 
that have established large or ar e in the process. Similarly, the documentation and operationalization 
or enhancement of the legal and regulatory framework and procedures to issue advance rulings 
(Article 3) which we are currently doing in Niger, Jordan, and Pakistan. Establishment or 
review/enhancement of AEO programmes in Tajikistan, Philippines, Pakistan (Article 7.7). ITC is 
spearheading initiatives to make trade facilitation gender -responsive and inclusive for women 
especially our program me which is funded by the EU in Central Asian c ountries. We are implementing 
this program me which has primarily three components: 1) forming gender policy making, so 
incorporating gender aspects in reforms implementation so that they are not gender neutral but 
gender responsive; 2) adapt internal insti tutional practices to empower women, then creating a 
conducive border environment for women whether it is sensitize border officials to make trade 
gender -inclusive, provide recommendations to collect gender -disaggregated data at the border, and 
foster adop tion of gender -sensitive infrastructure at borders. Similarly, we are empowering women 
through participation in trade. Another area in which women are significant contributors is the 
informal cross -border trade. So, to make the informal cross -border trade more hospitable for 
cross-border traders, and encourage formalization of ethical and expansion to other regions of the 
world, there is support to implement border reforms and infrastructure projects either through G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  simplified trade regimes or through Trade Information Desks, and empowering trade -support 
institutions to assist informal trade.  
8.104.   Lastly, with regards to digitalization, we are supporting countries through certificate of 
origin, support automation of processes, and digitalization of documents. We are working with 
Pakistan and Jordan for integrated risk management to develop or strengthen interoperable 
frameworks within different WT agencies and intently share to reduce the time of the tracks at the 
borders and waiting times at the queue. We have cr eated this digital queue management systems 
which we are implementing. We are also helping the countries where we work in their e -commerce 
initiatives whenever there is sufficient logistics.  
8.105.   A representative of the World Bank  indicated the following:  
8.106.   The World Bank Group (WBG) is one of the largest multilateral providers of financial and 
technical assistance support for facilitation. We currently have 100 countries that we provide support 
to, possibly through our flagship Trade Facilitation Support Progra m, the Trade Facilitation West 
Africa program me and the financing of related infrastructure including Digitization and National 
Single Windows (NSW). An example of that would be where we are financing the building of a single 
window in Lesotho and a very i nnovative project at the moment is in the Eastern Balkans, where we 
are looking to finance the building of national Single Window across the six eastern Balkan countries.  
8.107.   Our flagship support program me for helping countries implement the Trade Facilitatio n 
Agreement is a Trade Facilitation Support Program (TFSP), which was launched in 2014. It is a 
demand driven, practical assistance program me focusing on providing support for an effective 
implementation of the TFA. We have nine donor partners providing fi nancing for this particular 
program: Australia, Canada, European Union, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, 
United  Kingdom, and the United States. These two overall program me components comprise 
provision of technical assistance and a critical compon ent of knowledge sharing, peer to peer learning 
across countries receiving support under the TFSP.  
8.108.   We are currently supporting 47 countries, you will see that 27% of support is to IDA or LDC 
countries and 26%, the highest percentage is in Sub -Saharan Afric a. However, we are providing 
support across all regions.   
8.109.   An example of priority measures that we provide support around are risk management, 
border collaboration, automation and single windows, trade related fees and charges, access to 
information, imple mentation of World Bank's National Trade Global Software, obviously the National 
Trade Facilitation Committee s, public -private partnerships and mechanisms in leadership groups 
between the public and private sector. A number of these have been really critic al in focusing the 
support to countries in the current COVID -19 pandemic.  
8.110.   National Trade Facilitation Committee s, Risk Management, Arbitration are the leaders in 
terms of demand for support and where we would provide the most resources and support.  
8.111.   During COVID we pivoted quickly, changed the way we provided support to a virtual 
modality, really provide support for paperless trade, automated systems, streamlining of customs 
and border agency procedures, and harmonization of procedures to limit the im pact of the pandemic. 
We have developed a video and two guidance notes that we have provided to assist countries to 
identify areas of support.  
8.112.   Just to look at regional challenges and country examples, we have seen some regional 
variations in providing sup port to implement the Trade Facilitation Agreement. There are some 
common challenges, but also challenges that are specific to regions. Political, economic, levels of 
integration, capacity and capability, and small island developing states, all offer uniqu e challenges 
which require project modalities to be carefully designed and carefully implemented to ensure the 
unique challenges and needs of a particular country and region are taken into consideration.  
8.113.   An example of our country support is Ethiopia, a cou ntry in accession to the WTO. You will 
see there that we provide a support around the single window and we have had a particularly good 
result there. We have seen the clearance time for traders significantly reduced there, from 44 to G/TFA/M/19  
 
- 32 - 
 
  13 days. Compliance co sts are estimated to be reduced for traders by 50%. So again, digitization 
and single window obviously can reap specific and great benefits for the private sector.  
8.114.   The World Bank has carried out work in Guatemala and Honduras, removing duplicative 
process es and piloting a trust in the union, simplified into one process from moving cargo between 
the two countries. This was particularly successful in removing time for the private sector from 
ten hours to seven minutes. The research has been undertaken by SIE CA, the regional secretariat 
and has indicated growth in trade of 7% between the two countries since the implementation of this 
particular customs union pilot.  
8.115.   We measure the improvement in the line through the work that we do in all countries and 
we have a tracking tool, Alignment, which we provide to the National Trade Facilitation Committee s 
to allow them to track their own improvement in Alignment Trade Implementation and Performance. 
Across the portfolio of countries there is an increase from 41% in 20 14 to 51% as of 
30 January  2021. This is a very clear, positive increase. There were also increases in the other World 
Bank Group indicators, particularly the logistics performance increased.  
8.116.   Regarding the impact on the private sector of our activities ar ound implementing the TFA, 
in the Caribbean where we have provided support across a number of island countries, a total of 
USD 5.7 million was made in savings for the private sector. In south Asia, in Nepal and Bangladesh, 
private sector savings achieved t hrough the implementation of the TFA reached USD  61 million for 
the private sector.  
8.117.   There is a special gender focus, contained within the Trade Facilitation support program me. 
There has been very little knowledge about the constraints faced by women trader s at the firm level. 
There has been a lot of work, particularly in the World Bank about small -scale traders, entrepreneurs 
between land borders, but there is very little knowledge on what were the constraints faced by 
women traders.  
8.118.   The primary focus was on our questionnaire, which was deployed mostly virtually, 
50 questions, focused very much around the TFA. It was delivered to women -owned, 
women -managed firms but there was a control group of men also surveyed, mostly freight 
forwarders and customs broker s, to find where there were differences in access to benefits of trade 
facilitation.  
8.119.   We have completed the work in the Pacific and those specific reports were published in 2021. 
We have upcoming reports for Brazil, Philippines, South Africa and India. Thes e findings are not only 
published but are used to inform the design of trade facilitation projects as we move forward.  
8.120.   Looking at the summary of the findings, what has become evident is that women traders, 
compared to men, are struggling to access clear, consistent, transparent, and predictable 
information. Secondly, access to benefits through authorized operator program mes did not always 
seem to be equally accessible to women as it was to men. The existence of the NTFC and the option 
for the private secto r to lobby through the NTFC was not always available to women traders, so few 
women were aware that the avenue was there.   
8.121.   As a last subject, just recently the UNECE published Recommendation Number 38, for Trade 
Information Portals. This work has been ong oing for the last couple of years. The TFSP supported 
the World Bank leadership and coordination of the UNECE Working Group to agree on 
Recommendation Number 38 on Trade Information Portals. Essentially, the recommendation covers 
establishing a Trade Infor mation Portal (TIP) to improve transparency and predictability of trade 
information, establishing a strategic vision for the TIP within the overall Trade Facilitation Policy and 
environment, adopting a governance body for strategic direction and putting in  place agreements 
for collaboration and mechanisms for exchange of information. Of course, the World Bank Group's 
Trade Information Portal software aligns to the standard already and I think it is particularly useful 
to have the standard out there now that  Members can use to ensure they can benchmark access to 
information and of course the World Bank provides support around it. Thank you to the listed 
partners in support for their financing.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.122.   A representative of the World Customs Organization  indicated the following:  
8.123.   The WCO has submitted its contribution to the progress report from Annex D organizations 
where we have shared concise information on the developments since the last report submitted in 
April this year.  
8.124.   I would like to provide yo u with a bit more detail on some of the activities carried out through 
the Mercator programme to support our Membership in implementing the TFA. As most of you are 
probably already aware, the Mercator Programme follows a dual -track approach that is compris ed 
of overall and tailor -made tracks, allowing the WCO to respond to important cross -cutting, as well 
as country specific challenges to TFA implementation . 
8.125.   I would like to start with the developments under the overall track which are important for 
the Memb ership broadly. In June this year we held the Council session which was an opportunity for 
many of the tools that have gone through the different working bodies to be finally approved by 
WCO's highest decision -making body. After that, they have been made a vailable to the Membership 
and more broadly, as guidance material. The completed tools support a number of areas, notably 
facilitation of essential and other goods in disaster situations such as the WCO Guidelines on Disaster 
Management and Supply Chain Co ntinuity. Others include tools to support facilitation of e -commerce 
shipments, such as the 2nd edition of the Compendium of Case Studies on E -Commerce and the 
two Secretariat Notes on expanding the concept of Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) to 
cross-border e -commerce, as well as on effective and efficient revenue collection in cross -border 
e-commerce.  
8.126.   The WCO also approved tools to assist in implementing certain technical measures in the 
TFA, such as the AEOs, through two particular tools: the AEO Imple mentation and Validation 
Guidance and the Regional Customs Union AEO programmes and plurilateral mutual recognition 
arrangements (MRAs). A number of tools were developed to support risk management, such as the 
the Maturity Model and Diagnostic Tool, as wel l as the Customs Risk Management during a pandemic.  
8.127.   We take note of the interest expressed by the European Union in the meeting yesterday for 
the WCO to present on the Guidelines on Disaster Management and Supply Chain Continuity, as well 
as on Customs Ri sk Management during a pandemic. We can arrange this for one of the meetings 
ahead, as appropriate.  
8.128.   We are also in the process of developing new tools and updating existing ones. An example 
is the Online AEO Compendium which would be a hugely beneficial to ol for Customs and Trade 
around the world, making the information on AEO programmes and mutual administrative 
arrangements much more user friendly and readily available. Work also continues on refining 
existing tools for risk management and post -clearance audit such as the Risk Management 
Compendium and its operational volume, as well as the PCA Diagnostic Tool and the How to audit 
typology. We also have in the pipeline an update of the Technical Guidelines on advance rulings for 
classification, origin and valuation that will be enhanced with the results from an online survey on 
advance rulings.  
8.129.   We have also developed the Secretariat Note on the current state of play in the WCO 
Members regarding national Trade Facilitation Committee s, as presented in detail  by my colleague 
in the meeting yesterday. Most of the WCO tools are made publicly available on our web site. There 
are of course limitations for some more sensitive ones, in particular those related to Risk 
Management. However, regarding the ones that are  public, we are working closely with other 
stakeholders in making them more widely available, including to the private sector, such as through 
the Global Trade Helpdesk (GTH). The GTH was launched in 2017 by the ITC, UNCTAD and the WTO. 
The WCO is intensif ying its contribution to this initiative with inclusion of the E -Commerce Package, 
WCO Guidelines on Disaster Management and Supply Chain Continuity and IPR. In terms of the 
different events of relevance for supporting TFA implementation, since April we ha ve had numerous 
events.  
8.130.   In May we held together with the United Arab Emirates the 5th Global AEO Conference online, 
which attracted almost 4 ,000 participants from 158 countries and with 80 prominent speakers. The 
Conference discussed the importance of Auth orized Economic Operator (AEO) programmes and 
helping to shape the vision of AEO 2.0. It also looked into the main challenges with current AEO G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  programmes and the need to harmonize AEO application, validation and authorization processes 
through increased us e of technology.  
8.131.   Right after the Council sessions in June, we also held the WCO Knowledge Academy for 
Customs and Trade which is held annually and covers numerous Customs topics. Bearing in mind 
the continuous interest of the Customs and Trade community in  the TFA, we have added a session 
on this topic as well. I would like to thank the WTO Secretariat for providing a speaker for this 
session to share an update on the state of play regarding the TFA.  
8.132.   As mentioned in the report, we have started a third round  of WCO's regional workshops on 
the TFA. We have kicked -off the round with the Asia -Pacific region in April. The next one will be held 
jointly for the two African regions  – for East and Southern Africa and for West and Central Africa. 
This webinar is sched uled for 1 to 3 December. We will continue the series of TFA workshops with 
the one for the Americas and the Caribbean region planned for end of March next year.  
8.133.   These workshops are focusing on a number of different areas, such as measures to facilitate 
goods during the COVID -19 pandemic, as well as the effects of the pandemic on Trade Facilitation. 
The workshops further explore the role of technologies, cooperation with the private sector and 
cooperation amongst government agencies for successful implemen tation of the Agreement. The 
delegates also share their experiences on the functioning of national Committee s and on the use of 
tools for monitoring TFA implementation, including the Time Release Study and the Mercator TFA 
Maturity Model. Lastly, the deleg ates discuss the particular challenges faced in their respective 
regions. I would like to thank again the WTO Secretariat for joining these workshops to share an 
update on the state of play regarding the TFA.  
8.134.   I would also like to highlight a paper that was  developed jointly with the WTO on "Customs 
Use of Advanced Technologies to Facilitate and Secure Cross -Border Trade". It was developed using 
the results from the WCO's Annual Consolidated Survey. The paper provides insights on the 
implementation state of play by Customs for the following three groups of technologies: 
(i) Blockchain/distributed ledger technology; (ii) Internet of things; and (iii) Big data, data analytics, 
artificial intelligence and machine learning. Its findings will also be used to updat e the WCO Study 
Report on Disruptive Technologies, which will be undertaken in cooperation with the WTO. We would 
like to thank the WTO for its work on this paper, which will be discussed in our Permanent Technical 
Committee  next week and made publicly ava ilable after that.  
8.135.   We continue the regional workshops on disruptive technologies which started with the 
Asia-Pacific workshop in March, then continued with the European workshop in May and we will hold 
the Americas and Caribbean workshop in the end of Nove mber.  
8.136.   I would also like to take this opportunity to invite all interested delegates to attend the 2021 
WCO TECH -CON, which is our annual technology event. The webinar will be held on 10 and 
11 November and will focus on international standards of importan ce for automation and 
interoperability for Customs and more broadly in the border management environment. The event 
web site link is available in the written contribution submitted to the WTO Secretariat.  
8.137.   In terms of the tailor -made track and the specific support intended for individual Members, 
the WCO continued to provide effective technical support and capacity building assistance through 
the now established virtual delivery approach.  
8.138.   Since April 2021, with the assistance of Member Experts, over 70 onli ne support activities 
have been successfully delivered and many more are planned for later in 2021. Almost 50 of these 
activities were delivered under the multi -year (MY) Mercator operating model that is based on 
medium to long -term engagements and employs  a project -based approach. The WCO currently has 
57 Customs administrations benefiting from MY Mercator partnerships. However, most of our 
developing and least developed Members have benefited from some sort of assistance under the 
programme.  
8.139.   Delivered activities have included several Mercator diagnostic assessments and strategic 
planning support missions along with activities closely associated with specific Articles of the TFA 
including, post -clearance audit, risk management, time release stu dy and many others.   G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.140.   Last, but not least, we would like to use this opportunity to thank the long list of our donors 
and their support under the Mercator Programme, without whose engagement these valuable 
Technical Assistance and Capacity Building activit ies would not be possible.  
8.141.    A representative of the OECD  indicated the following:  
8.142.   The presentation is an overview of the recent analysis that we have been doing on Trade 
Facilitation at the OECD.  
8.143.   The OECD does not influence program mes directly on the groun d. It has been trying to use 
different policy tools to identify recommendations opportunities, challenges, and also to undertake 
quantitative analysis on the benefits of trade facilitation.  
8.144.   I would like to provide an overview, more specifically of the wor k we have been doing with 
the OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators and how these can help map these opportunities and 
challenges in implementing at the WTO TFA measures, but also other Trade Facilitation measures 
that are key. Of the most recent assessments that we have had doing on looking at the benefits of 
implementing the Trade Facilitation reforms and also what is the upcoming work we have planned.  
8.145.   The work that we have been doing on setting up together and updating the OECD Trade 
Facilitation Indicator s, which are policy tools that cover the different areas that are included in the 
WTO TFA, but also some additional areas that crossed over all 155 policy measures. We currently 
cover 163 economies, and we have been developing the series since 2012. What w e are trying to 
do through the indicators is regulatory framework but also as to how some of these measures are 
implemented and practiced. What we are trying to do with the indicators is to look at the regulatory 
framework for such measures, but also how t hey are put into practice to the extent possible. So for 
example, in the case of pre -arrival processing or authorized operators, not only what regulatory 
framework exist, but also what is the share of transactions that are discovered by pre -arrival 
process ing or how many traders or SMEs are included for instance in authorized operators 
program mes. We have been working quite closely over the years with our colleagues from Annex D 
organizations and other regional organizations from the private sector to use t his kind of policy tool 
to look within the different program mes that are implemented in countries as to what are going to 
be the continued challenges and opportunities to advance Trade Facilitation or reform.  
8.146.   I will just provide a snapshot that we have ava ilable from the most recent data, which 
basically covers 2019 -20. These are some of the areas that we haven't seen for instance in terms of 
what the difference of the state of play or what the different challenges are across the different 
regions that we c over and some of the trade facilitation areas that have to do with automating or 
streamlining processes. We have seen a particular move during the COVID pandemic, for instance 
to automatize the processes that are much more complicated to undertake under th ose 
circumstances.  
8.147.   We also offer the possibility to visualize this data set through two tools, which basically 
allows you to look not only at individual country's state of play and challenges, but also really delve 
into these 155 measures that I was refer ring to that we cover. We basically also look into how 
regions on average perform in different areas covered or what would be some of the best practices 
and again as we have been working with colleagues and other Annex D organizations, we produced 
this to see what the target needs will be on the ground across the different countries.  
8.148.   Another area of work that we have at the OECD is tracking the evolution of the aid available 
for commitments including Aid for Trade Facilitation. First, we have the most recen t data for 
purchasing power in 2019 and this continues to be updated. What we have seen is that there has 
been an increase in the commitment and disbursement of aid regarding trade facilitation projects. 
The most recent figures that we have show n that thes e commitments amount to around 
USD 600 million, so we will of course continue to track the situation as it evolves. It will be very 
interesting to have a picture of how the COVID pandemic has impacted on this and what the 
challenges will continue to be in light of this.  
8.149.   We have seen that overall, the trade facilitation areas covered by the TFA could reduce trade 
costs of up to 80%. They could also help boost trade in specific sectors. Basically, we see that for 
each specific measure from transparency to aut omation to streamlining processes, and border G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  agency cooperation, we could have from very modest improvements in these areas to boosting trade 
flows for different sectors by up to 4%.  
8.150.   Regarding the impact that we see for MSMEs, where again these types of m easures can 
increase the chances of MSMEs to become exporters and participate in international trade more 
broadly. One of our more recent areas of work looks at trading of parcels, including parcels that are 
digitally ordered. We see that improvements here  can lead to increases in the type of trade by up 
to 14%. We have seen the opportunities that can be brought by e -commerce and so in this sense it 
is very important to improve some of the trade facilitation measures that can help promote trade in 
this area  and again, the TFA is extremely important in this sense.  
8.151.   I will just briefly mention that we are trying to introduce the work on Trade Facilitation into 
the broader scope of improving supply chain resilience. It is important to have trade facilitation in  
national strategies and to really emphasize how this will be reported in the recovery period. We are 
trying to do this through tools that incorporate facilitation as part of other more broader enabling 
environment since this can help enhance the supply ch ain resilience.  
8.152.   We are currently trying to update the Indicators data sets. We will continue to inform on the 
outcome of this data in the Quarter 1 of next year, when we hope to have already a draft of what 
this data could be, and also with a thematic foc us on border agency cooperation and how this played 
a role to address challenges in the COVID pandemic.  
8.153.   Another area of upcoming work, in light of a feasibility assessment that we carried out, is 
how to highlight some of the measures through a subset of t he trade facilitation indicators that could 
be important for trade in perishable, agro -food. We believe that it is very important to try to be 
more granular in terms of what data we would have to highlight what the challenges are in terms of 
implementing t rade facilitation reforms.  
8.154.   A representative of the UNCTAD  indicated the following:  
8.155.   Thank you for the opportunity to present UNCTAD's work on Trade Facilitation to the 
Committee . A more comprehensive overview than what I can give this afternoon and our con tact 
details are contained in the updated Annex D document for this session.  
8.156.   In general, UNCTAD provides a vast palate of assistance for implementation of the WTO 
Trade Facilitation, as well as other Trade Facilitation Agreements. We work presently with ar ound 
40 countries around the world, and we thank them for their collaboration and confidence in us. We 
would also like to thank the donors who are supporting our various programs in Trade Facilitation. 
UNCTAD in particular focuses attention on assistance t o National Trade Facilitation Committee s 
through the so -called Empowerment Program. We have developed this program me, which is a 
capacity building program me, both as in -country assistance and as multi -lingual e -learning platform 
that I have previously had the opportunity to present to this Committee .  
8.157.   In the framework of the e -learning platform, we have recently launched a training module 
focusing on gender and Trade Facilitation that we are rolling out in several languages. The first of 
these will start in  English then we had around 150 participants on the e -learning module at that 
time. Yesterday, together with Honduras, we also had the opportunity to present the UNCTAD Project 
Management and Monitoring Tools, so called Reform Tracker, that we have rolled out in about 
20 countries for the time being. Further than that, UNCTAD has a Trade Information Portal Solution, 
which is also used by ITC as we heard previously this morning. This portal assists countries to fulfil 
their obligations under the Trade Facili tation Agreement Article 1.2, but it also provides a very 
intuitive tool for simplification of Trade Facilitation procedures so it has a dual purpose.  
8.158.   UNCTAD's largest technical assistance program me is the so called AYSCUDA Customs and 
Trade Automation pr ogram me, which as of today is implemented in more than 90 countries and 
territories around the world. This can also be used for the implementation of single window, and you 
have seen an example of this from Kazakhstan during their presentation at the sessi on yesterday.  
8.159.   Now I would like to quickly update you on two specific developments, namely developments 
in UNCTAD's online database for National Trade Facilitation Committee s, and secondly the upcoming G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  forum on National Trade Facilitation Committee s that w e are planning. I believe we have a small 
video, so if we could play the video.  
8.160.   UNCTAD has for more than ten years maintained a database on National Trade Facilitation 
Committee s around the world, as of today we have 120 in TFCs represented in this tool. Here you 
will see an example of data from the Republic of Congo. The database includes various data on 
contact information and a number of other data on sustainability and whatever else is relevant for 
NTFCs. We also have information about what UNCTAD tool s are available, and we have now included 
a sustainability score for NTFCs for how sustainable these Committee s are based on a methodology 
we have developed. Also, what we have developed recently is a second new feature with consolidated 
data, either globa lly, by country, or by selected countries. This can for instance be country groups, 
geographical or LLDCs. On the selected possibility that this will be up and running only in early 2022, 
but for the features these will be available from now. On this conso lidated data you can actually go 
in and with the data that we have available from the various countries, you can see for instance how 
many NTFCs there are and when they have been established. You can also see a various variety of 
other data for the NTFCs, you can see their sustainability issues, their communication issues on a 
consolidated data, showing here for instance we have how many Committee s have female 
chairpersons, and finally on communication, here you will be able to see for instance what 
complic ations and outcomes there are for the Committee  and also this aggregated data can be 
downloaded and can be used by various stakeholders and other Committee s. Here we for instance 
have challenges to the sustainability of the NTFC.  
8.161.   In this respect, we have really tried to improve the data that we have available by 
consolidating these, and making these available globally. I would like to invite countries to vi sit the 
database and to review the data regarding their National Trade Facilitation Committee s and if 
changes are necessary then contact us or if their countries are not represented in the database or 
listen then also contact us to provide the missing info rmation. We are very interested in linking this 
database up with the WTO TF database so that we can consolidate and provide more data to all 
stakeholders.  
8.162.   Finally, the second issue that I would like to inform about is that UNCTAD is planning to 
organize a second global forum on National Trade Facilitation Committee s to take place between the 
1–4 February 2022. For the time being, this forum will be organized virtually, and the forum will 
focus on how NTFCs can assist to accelerate the implementation of Trad e Facilitation reforms.  
8.163.   Some of you may recall that in the past we have organized such forums, namely in 2017 a 
global forum, and in 2019 an African forum for NTFCs. We organized this together with a number of 
other international organizations and stakeho lders and we hope that these stakeholders will also join 
up with us again to organize the upcoming event. We will provide more information on the forum 
soon, but I would like to encourage all to note the dates again 1 –4 February 2022 and to make a 
note in their calendars. Finally, Mr. Chair I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present 
but also thank the Secretariat and TFAF for their collaboration.  
8.164.   The delegate of the European Union  indicated the following:  
8.165.   We would like to thank the speakers for their very informative and comprehensive 
presentations. Regarding the OECD, what methodology was used to show that even a small and 
partial implementation of specific articles of the TFA could bring a 40% decrease of the cost of doing 
business, an increase in exports, in particular for agri -food products, and pharmaceuticals. What 
was the basis to draw such conclusions? Have there been any questionnaires to countries having 
implemented specific, even if partial, reforms where the private sector consulte d? Were there studies 
on the clearance of goods? What lead to this conclusion?  
8.166.   The delegate of China  indicated the following:  
8.167.   China would like to take this opportunity to thank the WTO, OECD and UNCTAD for sharing 
the very informative and comprehensive presentations today with us, especially regarding the 
presentation from WCO. We know that in the WCO there is a lot of experience sharing, they have 
many program mes, and they are establishing very good recommendations and outlines for certain  
areas, especially for custom authorities who are working very hard these days. We are really looking 
forward to further cooperation and collaboration between the WCO and WTO.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.168.   The delegate of the United Kingdom  indicated the following:  
8.169.   The UK would like t o thank the Annex D organizations for their presentations. It is always 
insightful to hear from delivery partners on their ongoing assistance as well as reflections on what 
assistance is being taken up in the areas that they intend to focus on in the futur e.  
8.170.   The delegate of the United States  indicated the following:  
8.171.   The US would like to thank all of the Annex D partners for their participation today and for 
the full descriptions of their projects, which we found very interesting and helpful.  
8.172.   The delegate of Ecuador  indicated the following:  
8.173.   We would like to thank all of the Annex D partners for their presentations, but specifically 
we would like to thank UNCTAD for their work. It is a very positive collaboration working through 
the National Trade Facilitat ion Committee s. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank 
Germany for co -financing the program me. We have a national institution for the establishment of a 
TFA roadmap, and we also have an e -learning component of the program me. This is extremely 
positive work for Ecuador, and we hope to continue this cooperation.   
8.174.   The representative of the OECD  indicated the following:  
8.175.   The data results come from economic modelling that links the OECD Trade Facilitation 
Indicators with data on trade flows or on t rade costs, including for specific sectors. The indicators 
are basically constructed in two stages: first, information from different publicly available sources is 
compiled to cover all of the measures that are included in the indicators. The information i s factually 
checked. In the last update that we did for 2019, we had the opportunity for the third time to 
participate in the Trade Facilitation Committee  to send the data sheets for verification to the WTO 
delegations in Geneva and we are thankful for the  information that we received back. Of course, 
with each of the update we aiming to improve the information and the estimates of trade costs or 
enhancing the trade flows, which is a challenge for all provisions of the TFA. The indicators 
themselves remain policy tools. The OECD tried to have a view of the regulatory and operational 
frameworks that are in place with respect to those measures in countries.  
8.176.   The delegate of Nepal  indicated the following:  
8.177.   My delegation would like to make this statement on beha lf of the LDC group. The LDCs are 
fully committed to effective implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement and putting their 
efforts at the maximum possible level towards this. Every LDC has been facing different problems in 
relation to the provisio ns and the corresponding implementation periods. Technical assistance 
provided by various donor members and international organizations contributed to familiarizing, 
categorizing and notification.   
8.178.   Most LDCs have notified their definitive dates for Catego ry B last year and indicative dates 
for Category C this year. They have also notified technical assistance requirements. Effective 
implementation of those Category C measures has strong connection with significant additional 
support from our development pa rtners in terms of resource, technological, institutional and human 
capacity building as provisioned in the Article 21.2 and 21.3 without compromising existing 
development priorities. LDCs facing various challenges even in notifying their dates of 
implemen tation will definitely face many more obstacles in implementation.  
8.179.   Therefore, additional support from development partners to implement the provisions by 
engaging with the areas as notified by the LDCs in their technical assistance requirements would be 
helpful. Capacity constraints, technology constraints, and limited awareness, among others are 
hindering implementation of TFA in most LDCs.  
8.180.   Additionally, landlocked least developed countries have further difficulties, especially within 
their territory, to  develop and maintain sufficient trade infrastructure including ICT infrastructure. 
Trade facilitation for LDC Members requires bridging huge digital gap and connection of entire 
domestic business with ICT system and e -commerce and then linked with the cro ss-border trade.  G/TFA/M/19  
 
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  8.181.   Involvement of relevant domestic institutions and stakeholders at the maximum possible 
level would be highly effective for achieving the expected results in a more coordinated and 
collaborated manner. Additionally, implementation of the C OVID -19 pandemic may need to be 
considered while designing future technical assistance programme.  
8.182.   We appreciate the work of TFAF and the Annex D organizations which provide in country 
support to us and collaborate with the WTO on several activities for LDC s. Finally, the LDCs extend 
sincere appreciation to all donor country members for their continued support and cooperation in 
implementation of the TFA.  
8.183.   The Committee  took note  of the information and the statements made.  
8.184.   The Dedicated Session was adjourned . 
__________