A two-day conference was held in
Kathmandu from 29 to 30 September 2016 to disseminate the findings of South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) country studies on trade and
transport facilitation in the region. The meet organized by South Asia Watch on
Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) brought together participants from
all the SAARC countries, except Afghanistan.
Discussions were carried out on
the findings by regional experts following the presentation of each country
study. Many of the presenters took time not only to disseminate the study
findings but went beyond to update the reports that they had prepared earlier.
Lively discussions enhanced the conference’s profile with new information.
During the inaugural session, chief guest of the function, Minister for
Commerce Mr. Romi Gauchan Thakali said that South Asia suffers from
connectivity problems and took up the difficulties particularly faced by
landlocked nations to drive his point home.
Mr. Suraj Vaidya, SAARC Chamber
of Commerce and Industry president, highlighted the difficulties of
cross-border trading within the South Asian region with examples in which his
own business delegation had carried out field visits for first-hand information
on the state of trade facilitation. He called on the political leadership for
greater political will to remove the hurdles in the way of intra-regional
trade.
Ms. L. Sabithri, director for
trade, finance and economics at the SAARC Secretariat, said that the intentions
of the member countries has been good, that the institutions are there but
things have not been moving as well as expected, as “we have focused on
cooperation rather than integration”. She talked about the disconnects plaguing
the regional body, like the gap between commitment and practice, national and
regional priorities and intra-governmental differences on the same issue.
Dr. Posh Raj Panday, executive
chairman of SAWTEE, who also chaired the inaugural, said that there is real
cost involved in having trade obstacles. Cross-border trade facilitation can
benefit countries through a greater amount of trade and a diversified trade,
not to mention the benefits it gives small and medium enterprises, he said and
warned that without measures to do so South Asia’s existing competitive advantage
could erode.
Working sessions followed these
remarks. These sessions were divided into two categories, the first set saw discussions on the issues of the
non-landlocked South Asian countries and their traders’ plight. The second
group, slated for the next day, was devoted to discussing issues of the
landlocked SAARC members. The latter helped add depth to the connectivity issue
by including transit problems. But, prior to discussing these two sets of
country reports, a separate primer session was held to discuss the general
issues of trade facilitation with references to the World Trade Organization
(WTO) agreement and South Asia’s need to tackle the emerging concerns. These
two presentations were done by Dr. Nisha Taneja of Indian Council for Research
on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and Dr. Prabir De, Professor,
Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Coordinator,
ASEAN-India Centre, New Delhi.
Discussants focused on the
non-tariff measures that hampered trade and the cost they were inflicting on
intra-regional trade. They noted that the WTO TFA commitments of individual
countries was speeding the implementation of different aspects of trade
facilitation but that their being in different stages of doing so was also
hampering efforts at harmonizing the procedural aspects within SAARC. To resolve this, a participant said that an
implementation deadline is needed so that harmonization can be smooth. Since
these were uncharted territory for South Asians, participants also called for
capacity building initiatives.
The country sessions charted out
the issues regarding trade facilitation and the developments taking place in
the area in each of the SAARC member states. Automation of customs services and
one window customs clearance were found to be the primary focus of every SAARC
member. Each was found by the audit to be in a different stage of implementing
them. Sri Lanka appeared to be at the forefront on implementing the national
single window while in automating customs clearance most members were already
in the advanced stage of upgrading to Automated SYstem for CUstoms DAta (ASYCUDA)
World were already enforcing it. The audit also found that India, on its part,
had developed its own system called SWIFT.
The presentations devoted to
non-landlocked SAARC members were tilted towards solving the infrastructure
problems—over or undercapacity of ports, quality of roads, transport issues,
integrated custom posts and the like. There were also voices raised regarding
the shifting priorities of customs-from being revenue collectors to guardians
of security, health, the environment and the like. For infrastructure,
investment should be done on a private-public partnership basis, and that the
model for that should be chosen carefully.
On the other hand, landlocked
countries called for more points of entry and exit along their borders to open
for transit, documentation and procedural hassles facing them in the ports of
transit and transportation issues. Some of these problems were being
transferred from SAARC to subregional forums like the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India Nepal) for resolution and things were reported to be moving in the right
direction here. One participant pointed out that freedom of transit is not
enough and that reduction of transit costs and removal of transit hurdles
should be the goal.
A discussant called for trial
runs to be carried out so that the actual problems can be identified and
resolved effectively. Having too many hurdles is not helpful. However, no
matter how the obstacles are set up, traders will find a way to continue their
business, several participants said, if not formally, then informally. “Like
water, trade will keep on flowing”, said one.
Following the country
presentations, another session was devoted to cobbling up a South Asian
perspective on trade facilitation. The presentation was done by SAWTEE Chairman
Dr. Posh Raj Panday where he outlined the objectives and justified the
methodology followed by the audit, before rounding up with a comparative
analysis of the country studies.
The closing session tried to
chart a future course for regional trade facilitation in South Asia. Here, too,
the presentation was carried out by Dr. Panday. He gave an empirical twist to
the attempt by using an econometric model to show the inverse relation between
transaction costs and trade facilitation. To reduce the costs, he recommended
several ideas and they included those at the bilateral and subregional levels.
They were:
- Regional framework for regional infrastructure
like the subregional transport agreement
of BBIN which talks about at least the movement of trucks
- Harmonization of customs procedure and
documentation and classification of goods
- Seamless connectivity among South Asian
countries
- A regional transit agreement for South
Asia.
- Investment on port and other infrastructure from
government and private sector
- Single window to be made more streamlined and
advanced to the national level and, ultimately to, the SAARC levelC
- Clearance procedures to be made more predictable
and transparent
- Have more integrated checkpoints at the
bilateral level
- Mutual recognition agreement for technical
standards
- Development and update of human resources for
trade facilitation in an institutional manner
- Awareness among private sector stakeholders on
the issue of trade facilitation provisions
The dissemination meeting brought
together government officials, practitioners, private sector representatives,
media personnel, academics and various other stakeholders to share their
knowledge and experience in trade and transport facilitation across South Asia.
The meeting was organized under
the project “Trade and Transportation Facilitation Audit in South Asia”
initiated in 2013 with support from the Australian Government’s Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The project was implemented by SAWTEE with
its member/partner organizations, namely Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in
Bangladesh; Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) International in India;
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Pakistan; and Institute of
Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) in Sri Lanka. The overall goal of the project
was to contribute in enhancing economic integration in South Asia by
identifying trade- and transport-related bottlenecks in the region and
estimating the required investment.
The inputs collected from the
meeting shall add value to the draft reports.
Technical session I: Trade facilitation—Global trends and implications for South Asia
Presentation: Dr. Nisha Taneja, Professor, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi
Presentation: Dr. Prabir De, Professor, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Coordinator, ASEAN-India Centre (AIC), New Delhi
Technical session II: Trade and Transport Facilitation Audit in South Asian non-landlocked countries I—Understanding bottlenecks and costs
Presentation: Mr. Bipul Chatterjee, Executive Director, Consumer Unity & Trust Society, Jaipur
Presentation: Dr. Vaqar Ahmed, Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad
Technical session III: Trade and Transport Facilitation Audit in South Asian non-landlocked countries II—Understanding bottlenecks and costs
Presentation: Ms. Suwendrani Jayaratne, Research Officer, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), Colombo
Presentation: Mr. Md. Zafar Sadique, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka
Presentation: Ms. Suwendrani Jayaratne, Research Officer, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), Colombo
Technical session IV: Trade and Transport Facilitation Audit in South Asian landlocked countries—Understanding bottlenecks and costs
Presentation: Dr. Vaqar Ahmed, Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad
Presentation: Mr. Bipul Chatterjee, Executive Director, Consumer Unity & Trust Society, Jaipur
Presentation: Mr. Puspa Sharma, Research Director (on leave), SAWTEE, Kathmandu
Technical session V: Trade and Transport Facilitation in South Asia—A regional perspective
Presentation: Dr. Posh Raj Pandey, Executive Chairman, SAWTEE, Kathmandu
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