Trade and Transport Facilitation

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Trade and Transport Facilitation

• The Banks Operational Agenda

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1. What are we doing

• TTF projects with Customs highlight
• Afghanistan
• Pakistan
• Tunisia
• South Caucasus
• South East Europe
• GMS

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What are we doing

• Customs projects
• Vietnam
• Pakistan (revenue)
• Indonesia
• Russia
• Kenya
• Brazil

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What are we doing

• Structural adjustment / PRSC
• Armenia
• Albania

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2. Customs and Trade Facilitation

• Customs do not facilitate
• Enforce rules
• Collect revenue
• Search for violations
• At the best, Customs are unobtrusive

• Customs are facilitators?
• Trade statistics
• Customized procedures
• Assistance to companies
• Customs often precede the private sector

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A watch tower is also an observatory
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As you know well

• Customs is more than Customs
• Lots of other agencies
• Semantics
• Customs can do more than Customs
• Revenue collection, but also
• Security
• Law enforcement
• A wealth of un-nurtured skills
• Customs (sometimes) move away from revenue
• Focus on TF (advice, information, customize
  Customs)

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Who does this best? Is it necessary?
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We have to adjust our thinking

• Merger with tax administration
• Makes sense apparently, but
• Far away from TF (Brazil, Pakistan)
• Difficult to implement (Bosnia)
• Move away from Ministry of Finance?
• OECD countries tendency
• But does it lead to facilitation?
• Mixed results Depends on the lingering culture
  of control

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3. Old tools in a new context

• Risk management of course
• Single Window approach
• Look at SMEs
• One stop shop
• Visas?
• IT
• Infrastructure

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Risk management

• Risk management is not there only to detect
  miscreants, but also to reward compliance
• Due diligence, compliance audits, customization
• What about discounts for compliant traders?
• But it is often increasingly misunderstood
• Black (or white) lists, mechanical selectivity
• Models are increasingly sophisticated
• Should not be misused

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Single window

• Single window UNECE recommendation
• One agency, or
• One depository, or
• One system, or
• Any combination of these
• What is behind the window?
• Legislation
• Organization

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SMEs
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Small time business

• Up to 30 percent of foreign trade in some cases
• Shuttle trade
• Suitcase trade
• Valuation?
• Control?
• Duty evasion?
• Social role?

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Tourism is part of TTF

• Example 4 mln Turks cross Serbia every year
• Everybody gets trapped
• There is a huge cost
• There is fraud

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Visas

• Often justify immigration extended controls
• Difficult to address (Schengen, sovereignty
  issues)
• Handled by Ministry of Interior but processed by
  diplomats, but
• Offer the justification to work with immigration
  and review their procedures
• Look at processes, not policies

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One stop shops

• Also described as single windows, co-located
  facilities, shared crossing points, etc.
• Useful but
• Not a one stop shop
• Can worsen delays
• Facilitates cross-border cooperation, but not
  always within cooperation
• The only real attempt at integration Ohrid
  (Macedonia) in 1997

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Railways

• Not necessarily a Customs issue
• Trains are not road vehicles
• Processing is different
• Measurement is different
• Stops should be used
• But require imagination
• Drivers allowed in other countries
• Controls can take place far away from the border

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4. What can we do to help? Guidelines based on
the CMH (initial)

• How to design a strategy
• How could a Customs code be written and what
  should it include
• Enforcement and Customs
• Setting-up risk management
• How to address valuation issues in projects 
• How to address origin issues in projects 
•  

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Guidelines based on the CMH (initial)

• How to control exemptions
• Duty free shops
• Suitcase trade
• How to overcome borders
• The impact of security on operations
• How to design a Customs automation project
• Data sharing

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Other guidelines

• Border stations
• Border management
• Performance measurement
• Comparative benchmarking