Trade Facilitation Synergies between WTO and ASEAN Initiatives

Abstract

Trade facilitation seeks to simplify and streamline procedures to allow for an easier flow of trade across borders. Within this broad understanding, it can in turn be defined according to different sets of policies affecting trade processes and the cost of trade. It can be narrowly defined as the improving of cross-border administrative measures or more broadly to include behind-the-border measures such as infrastructure, institutional transparency, good governance, and domestic regulations. All these measures affect trade costs and with it the trade performance of a country. The World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) was concluded at the 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference and entered into force on 22 February 2017. It is a landmark for being the first multilateral trade agreement to be reached since the Uruguay Round.3 Besides, it has the potential to improve trade facilitation measures in all the 164 signatories. Meanwhile, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Trade Facilitation Framework (ATFF) focuses on existing ASEAN commitments and instruments relating to trade facilitation. This paper compares the trade facilitation measures of the WTO and of ASEAN, whose member states are all also WTO members.