Country specific discussions, based on the issues pertaining to each developing country is a must while pursuing trade facilitation goals at an international level, opines S N Menon, additional secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Addressing a national seminar on Trade Facilitation, jointly organized by World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Customs Organisation (WCO) here on October 31 2002, he wanted developing countries to carefully address this subject while bringing trade facilitations in WTO.

"The peculiarities of the various developing countries, which are at different stages of development having different duty structures as also different concerns, had to be taken into account while pursuing trade facilitation goals," he said.

Menon said that India does recognize the value of trade facilitation but at the same time, there was a need to look at it from various perspectives since there were divergent views on the issue of whether India need rules on customs clearance procedures under WTO. He emphasized that trade facilitation had begun to acquire increasing importance, as other traditional trade barriers like tariffs were undergoing significant reductions and governments had realised that reducing transaction cost is win-win situation for all the actors involved. He informed that significant strides had been made in this direction in India in the last few years on the basis of felt-need and within the resources available.

Prabir Sengupta, Director General of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Xiaobing Tang, Counsellor, WTO, Kameswari Subramanian, Senior Technical Officer, World Customs Organisation (WCO) were present in the Seminar along with senior customs officials, DGFT officials, representatives of trade bodies.

Sengupta in his inaugural address said that discussions on trade facilitation in WTO is currently in the form of a study process to "clarify and improve relevant aspects" of GATT Articles V (which deals with freedom of transit of goods), VIII (which deals with fees and formalities connected with importation and exportation) and X (which deals with publication and administration of trade regulations). He felt that this Seminar would provide a good opportunity to apprise the various stakeholders connected with the border clearance of goods with the issues under discussion in WTO on this subject.

The topics discussed were Overview on Trade Facilitation and Multilateral Trading System, Problems encountered by WTO Members, especially developing country members in the area of Trade Facilitation, Overview of main WCO instruments related to Trade Facilitation and Trade Facilitation-friendly procedures and practices.