Moreover, the national implementation plans reveal that
there remain numerous obstacles to trade-facilitation
reforms in developing countries (figure 5.2). The reasons
offered by the trade-facilitation stakeholders in the
participating countries to explain the absent or partial
implementation of the trade-facilitation measures go
beyond the mere lack of resources and include the gaps in
the existing legal framework, lack of awareness about the
benefits of the particular trade-facilitation measure both
for traders and the administrations involved, information
and communication technology and infrastructure
issues, lack of inter-agency cooperation, and lack of
organizational or institutional framework (figure 5.3). At
the same time, the lack of resources remains one of
the main obstacles for the implementation, especially in
LDCs.
On the other hand, several encouraging developments
for the trade-facilitation implementation could also be
observed. One of these developments is the growing
recognition in developing countries of the importance of
effective trade facilitation for growth, development and
investment. The trade-facilitation stakeholders in the
participating countries considered most of the trade-facilitation measures as having a medium to high priority
rate for the national economic development. The positive
impact of trade-facilitation reforms seems to be more
recognized in non-LDCs, which tend to award higher
priority to the trade-facilitation measures than LDCs.
Moreover, the estimates on the time requirements
for achieving the full implementation of these trade-facilitation measures show the acceptable time
parameters within which this full implementation could
be achieved. The estimated implementation time for
the majority of the measures was, on average, about
3 years and not higher than five years for most of the
remainder of the reforms. This makes it possible for
most of the countries to envisage full implementation
status within a five-year period. Estimating the
necessary financial resources was a much more difficult
task and varied greatly depending on the country.
However, in general the amount remained reasonably
modest, especially in the light of the substantial and
continuous increase in the international aid for trade
facilitation-related TACB.
Finally, for the participating countries, it seemed
possible to fully reduce the trade-facilitation
implementation gap, using the flexibilities proposed
in section II of the draft consolidated negotiating
text. The results of the national implementation plans
showed that to move forward with the trade-facilitation
implementation, the developing countries expected to
rely significantly on these flexibilities both in terms of
the additional implementation times and the TACB
which would be provided. Depending on the country,
the percentage of the measures that would either
require additional time, or additional time and TACB,
ranges from 10 per cent to 67 per cent (figure 5.4).
For the majority of the countries and for most of the
LDCs, these measures constitute, at least, one third of
the measures currently included in the draft WTO text.