38th UN/CEFACT Forum: Facilitating Trade in the Kyrgyz Republic - Progress and Prospects

Background 

Today, harnessing the potential of trade facilitation is more critical than ever. Over the past decades, the gradual reduction of tariffs has brought the role of trade facilitation to the fore. More recently, the trade disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis have put a spotlight on the importance of trade facilitation measures.

Since ratifying the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in 2016, the Kyrgyz Republic is transitioning to an economy that embraces digitalization and trade facilitation reforms. A number of inter-related national strategies and policies have been undertaken to facilitate progress in this direction. The Ministry of Economy and Commerce of the Kyrgyz Republic (MoEC) and the National Trade Facilitation Council of the Kyrgyz Republic (NTFC) are spearheading these policy reforms with participation of the public and private sector stakeholders. To address the challenges affecting trade facilitation and digitalization the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the MoEC jointly developed the National Trade Facilitation Roadmap of the Kyrgyz Republic 2021-2025. This five-year Roadmap guides the implementation of comprehensive national trade facilitation reforms.

This hybrid event “Facilitating trade in the Kyrgyz Republic: progress and prospects” will take place during the 38th UN/CEFACT Forum on 20 May 2022. It is aimed to showcase UNECE activities in the Kyrgyz Republic focusing on the following areas:

• capacity-building of policymakers and NTFC experts, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders
• effective implementation of trade facilitation policies, and
• efforts to accelerate recovery from COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the session will touch upon the development of e-business and paperless e-commerce in the Central Asian region, as well as ways to increase the dematerialization of cross-border data exchange. The activities undertaken will also contribute towards the UNECE trade subprogramme's objective to strengthen trade facilitation and electronic business, and trade-related economic cooperation in the UNECE region and beyond.

This event is a part of the 38th UN/CEFACT Forum and co-organized together with International Trade Centre (ITC) - an organization that leads wide-ranging projects in countries of Central Asia promoting the trade - intra-regional and international - through enhanced business environment, empowered business and enabled cross-border e-commerce.

 Opening Session 

 Session 1. Strengthening the trade facilitation capacity in Central Asia

 Session 2. Overcoming barriers for better trade facilitation & cross-border paperless trade