Trade Facilitation Implementation in Asia-Pacific 2015: Moving Towards Paperless Trade (Trade Insights: Issue No. 12)

3 August 2015

This issue of the Trade Insights series provides analysis of the recently released United Nations Regional Commissions (UNRC) Global Trade Facilitation (TF) and Paperless Trade Implementation Survey 2015 for 44 economies and 5 sub-regions across the Asia-Pacific. The survey provides data on the implementation of 38 TF measures, including but not limited to those featured in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA). The analysis of the implementation data collected reveals that the level of implementation of the ambitious set of TF measures considered in the UNRC Survey reaches almost 50%, indicating that the region has been actively engaged in implementing TF initiatives. However, implementation of TF remains very heterogeneous across the Asia-Pacific region, with Australia, Republic of Korea and Singapore achieving scores in excess of 85%, while other economies barely achieve 15% implementation. Whilst more than half of all 44 Asia-Pacific economies have at least partially implemented 80% of TFA-related measures included in the Survey, there is significant room for progress to further facilitate trade and reduce trade costs.