PremiumNEW DELHI: India improved its scores in trade facilitation to 90.2% in 2021 from 78.49% in 2019 in the United Nation’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific's (UNESCAP) latest Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation.
The Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is conducted every two years by UNESCAP. The 2021 Survey included an assessment of 58 trade facilitation measures of 143 countries covered by WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). The survey is keenly awaited as it provides evidence of whether or not trade facilitation measures have had the desired impact and helps draw comparison among countries. A higher score for a country also helps businesses in their investment decisions.
Concluded at the WTO’s 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference, the TFA contains provisions for expediting movement, release and clearance of goods, including those in transit. It also sets out measures for effective cooperation between customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues.
India has made significant improvement in the scores on all 5 key pillars of trade facilitation. In transparency, India’s score has improved to 100% from 93.33% in 2019 while in cross-border paperless trade, India lagged at 66.67% in 2021, but rose from 55.56% two years ago. In formalities (95.83%), institutional arrangement and cooperation (81.48%) and paperless trade (96.3%) also India made significant progress in 2021.
The Survey noted that India was the best performing country when compared to those in South and South West Asia (63.12%) and the Asia Pacific region (65.85%). India's scores were greater than those of many OECD countries including France, the UK, Canada, Norway, Finland, and also higher than EU's average score.
"CBIC (Central Board of Indirect taxes and Customs), has been at forefront of path breaking reforms under the umbrella of 'Turant' Customs to usher in a Faceless, Paperless and Contactless Customs by way of a series of reforms. This has had a direct impact in terms of the improvement in the UNESCAP rankings on digital and sustainable trade facilitation," the finance ministry said in a statement.
During the covid-19 pandemic, customs formations have made all efforts to expedite covid related imports such as oxygen related equipment, life-saving medicines, vaccines etc. “A dedicated single window covid-19 24*7 help-desk for EXIM trade was created on the CBIC website to facilitate quick resolution of issue(s) faced by importers," the finance ministry statement added.
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