Members of the Boksburg Group met on 24th to 25th July 2005 at Mombasa, Kenya’s most important port city and gateway to the East and Central Africa region, for two days of intensive deliberations on progress towards conclusion of a Trade Facilitation agreement at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In July 2004, the WTO agreed to commence negotiations towards concluding such an agreement in what has informally taken the name of “the July Package” in a development that was hailed as a major step towards reviving the stalled WTO negotiations after the failure of the Cancun talks in September 2003.

The Boksburg Group is an informal group of mainly developing countries, created to discuss the form and content the emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on Trade Facilitation. Participants in Boksburg Group roundtables are drawn from key stakeholders in the movement of goods, and include government trade departments, customs and business. Previous meetings of the Group have been held in South Africa (thus the name of the Group), Singapore, and Jamaica.

A possible WTO agreement on Trade Facilitation would cover matters covered under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) articles V (Transit Requirements), VIII (Border Management) and X (Appeal Procedures). The Group therefore made detailed recommendations regarding to these articles, for consideration of the negotiating teams in the WTO. Key considerations here include focusing on the benefits of trade facilitation, linking the agreement to technical assistance and capacity building especially for least developed and developing countries, and whether or not the agreement should be subject to the WTO dispute settlement process.
GATT Articles

Speakers at the meeting, including WCO Deputy Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya and Mr. Gerard McLinden of the World Bank, pointed to the need to look at the big picture of border management by incorporating current supply chain security concerns through cooperation with other government agencies and the private sector.

A Trade Facilitation Agreement would ideally strengthen customs authorities by helping them align their work with those of other border management agencies. This would happen if developed countries demonstrate commitment to building the capacity of developing country administrations to enable them implement the Agreement. Sustainable capacity building includes not only provision of required training and technical assistance, but information technology equipment and organizational development. In this regard, members expressed the need to establish trade facilitation consultative institutions within developing countries.

In addition to the needs of least developed and developing countries, land-locked countries and small island states have special problems that require consideration. The participation of some landlocked African countries (such as Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia) and Madagascar helped to highlight these problems, which include high freight costs and the possibility of pilferage of cargo while en route to destination.

Time Release Study

One of the recommendations of the Boksburg Group meeting held in Jamaica in June 2004 was the need to use measures of trade facilitation such as the Time Release Study (TRS). Mr. Mikuriya took the opportunity of the Mombasa meeting to present the results of a study undertaken in Kenya between July and October 2004 under a partnership between the World Bank, the World Customs Organization and the Kenya Revenue Authority. The study, which is available in the KRA web site, showed that delays in clearance of cargo were often caused by failure by logistics providers to lodge documents in advance. It also showed that some customs procedures needed to be reviewed especially in the context of KRA’s reform and modernization programme.

In meetings with high-level government representatives and the private sector, Mr. Mikuriya heard that stakeholders accepted the results of the TRS, and that they looked forward for implementation of an Action Plan to improve the trade facilitation environment.

“A process of regular assessment would enable each member and the WTO to trace their progress in delivering trade facilitation,” a paper produced after the Mombasa meeting under the auspices of the SITPRO, the Boksburg Group secretariat states, “This process aims to achieve improvement on a national basis; it would not be used to compare performance between countries.”

Mr. Mikuriya lauded Kenya’s leadership at the WTO, and expressed satisfaction at the progress of KRA’s reform and modernization programme.

He said, “Kenya is a strong voice for developing countries at the WTO and WCO, and the WCO appreciates Kenya’s leadership as the Regional Vice Chair for East and Southern Africa.”