President of the International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh (ICC,B) Mahbubur Rahman has appreciated the efforts of UNESCAP and ADB for the promotion of paperless trade of prospective SMEs using IT and other electronic devices in the Asia Pacific region. The appreciation came at the just-concluded Asia Pacific Trade Facilitation Forum 2012, jointly organised by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Colombo (Oct 30-31), said an ICCB press release on Tuesday.

The forum called on the countries of the region to reduce non-tariff trade barriers and emphasised strengthening regional connectivity for trade facilitation within the region.

The ICC,B President attended the Forum at the invitation of UNESCAP and ADB and chaired a session on E-Trade for SME Integration in Regional or Global Value Chains.

“To promote paperless trade for these (micro enterprises) would neither 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 said.

Mahbubur Rahman, however, said when US Defense webpage could be hacked and penetrated one has to be extra cautious and ensure security in paperless trading as it involved trillions of dollars of business transactions.
ICCB President mentioned various steps taken by the government of Bangladesh for simplifying the trade as well as reducing steps to cut down the time required for export and import clearance.