Long abstract

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The purpose of this paper is to survey trade facilitation provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs), discuss their conflicting or complementary relationship with the WTO and assess the extent to which RTA provisions may have gone beyond WTO provisions in this area. Trade facilitation can be defined as the simplification and harmonisation of international trade procedures, understood as activities, practices and formalities involved in collecting, presenting, communicating and processing data required for the movement of goods in international trade (WTO homepage). In this sense it relates to a wide range of activities such as import and export procedures (e.g. procedures relating to customs, licensing, and quarantine); transport formalities; payments, insurance, and other financial requirements. In some regional trade agreements trade facilitation also covers labour mobility, as well as testing and certification; however, as these issues are beyond the scope of the WTO definition, they will not be covered in this paper. Furthermore, although trade facilitation as defined above does not cover the facilitation of services movements, it should be born in mind that, the liberalisation of transportation, financial and other services related to the movement of goods is essential in enabling goods trade facilitation to occur.