The Asia-Pacific states were urged to reduce non-tariff trade barriers as well as strengthen regional connectivity for trade facilitation within the region.

The call was made at the concluding session of the Asia Pacific Facilitation Forum 2012 (APTFF-2012) in Colombo recently.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) jointly organised APTFF-2012.

Dr Sarath Amunugama, Senior Minister, International Monetary Cooperation of Sri Lanka suggested the need for developing and expanding the regional connectivity for increased trade within the Asia Pacific region in view of the continuous economic slowdown in Europe and the USA.

The opening ceremony was also addressed by Abdul Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister, Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka, Dr. Ravi Ratnayake, Director, Trade and Investment Division, ESCAP and Rita A. O Sullivan, Country Director, ADB Sri Lanka.

The minister also launched the publication on “Capacity Building Kit for Single Window Implementation” jointly published by UNNExT (United Nations Network of Exporters for Paperless Trade in Asia and Pacific), UNESCAP and UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe).

Mahbubur Rahman, President of ICC Bangladesh, who attended the forum at the invitation of UNESCAP and ADB, chaired a session on E-Trade for SME Integration in Regional or Global Value Chains.

In his remarks, Mahbubur Rahman appreciated the efforts of the UNESCAP and the ADB for promotion of paperless trade for the potential SMEs using IT and other electronic devices. Many of these however seldom keep records, transact business informally, and are not mainstream users of IT, he said.

To promote paperless trade for these (micro enterprises) would not be easy nor even sensible – what may be needed is to improve their environments so they can graduate to being SMEs with formal records, systems, and IT facilities, he also said.

Mahbubur Rahman, however, observed that when US Defense webpage could be hacked and penetrated, then one has to be extra cautious for ensuring security in paperless trading as it involved trillions of dollars of business transactions.

ICCB President mentioned about the various steps taken by the government of Bangladesh for simplifying the trade as well as reducing various steps to cut down the time required for export and import clearance.

Earlier on October 29, UNESCAP and ADB jointly arranged a SASEC (South Asia Sub-region Economic Cooperation) stakeholders workshop on sub-regional trade and transit collaboration.

Business Process Analysis, which is a practical study, commissioned by UNESCAP and ADB to identify various steps involved in trade between Bhutan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal and ways of reducing the impediments for cutting down both time and costs was presented.

The participants suggested various steps including simplification and harmonisation of trade procedures, more particularly at border, development modern corridor management techniques in selected corridors, facilitate regional transit (overland), development of regional institution (public-private interface) for trade facilitation, digitization of trade documentation.

The forum was attended by more than 200 government officials, traders, public and private service providers, chamber leaders from Central Asia, South and South-East and East Asia as well as the South Pacific.

The objective of the forum was to share experiences and knowledge on trade facilitation between countries of the greater Asia and Pacific region including LDCs and LLDCs, fostering increased understanding and exchange of views between public and private stakeholders.

The ADB, the UNESCAP and the World Bank also arranged a number of events related to trade facilitation on the sideline of the two-day forum.