Background
Trade facilitation creates a reliable, fast and cost-effective trade environment that benefits all countries and businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. It is a collaborative effort by governments and traders to cut the costs of doing trade, reduce delays at borders, and make public agencies dealing with trade more efficient.
Trade facilitation will strengthen and support Africa's development and integration: to realize these gains, the region needs much more than effective and efficient customs offices. It needs the backing of a reliable regulatory system, with the support of solid quality infrastructure including standards bodies, conformity assessment bodies, test houses and laboratories as well as inspection bodies. The African region is making renewed efforts at strengthening these institutions, at all levels, from local, to national, to regional, to pan-continental.
One key tool available to governments and businesses implementing trade facilitation is the Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide (TFIG). TFIG is an interactive tool developed by the United Nations with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA).
Content of the Workshop
At this Workshop, to be held as a side event of the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference, international and regional experts will present their experiences with existing standards and related tools, as well as their thoughts on how such instruments can be better used to further enhance implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) worldwide.
The following institutions will illustrate their respective contributions to making Trade Facilitation work for Africa:
- African Union Commission (AUC)
- African Organization for Standardization (ARSO)
- Pan-African Quality Infrastructure (PAQI)
- African Electrotechnical Standardisation Commission (AFSEC)
- African Accreditation Cooperation (AFRAC)
- the Kenya Bureau of Standards
- the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
The following international partners will share good practice in trade facilitation:
- World Trade Organization (WTO)
- United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
- International Trade Centre (ITC)
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
- United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
Programme and Presentations
| 10:00 – 10:30 |
Opening Remarks
|
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Coffee break |
| 10:45 – 12:15 |
Session 1. Implementing global standards under the WTO-TFA: the UN Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide (tfig.unece.org) Moderated by Daniel Blockert, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the WTO
|
| 12:15 – 12:45 | Panel discussion and questions and answers session |
| 12:45 – 14:00 | Light networking lunch |
| 14:00 – 15:45 |
Session 2. The role of standards and quality infrastructure for trade facilitation Moderated by Director for Trade and Industry, African Union Commission (AUC)
|
| 15:45 – 16:15 | Panel discussion and questions and answers session |
| 16:15 – 16:45 | Closing remarks |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Cocktail |