Trade Facilitation Recommendations

Sources of Trade Facilitation Recommendations

Customs Convention on Containers, 1972 (Customs Co-operation Council)

The objective of the Convention is the development and facilitation of international carriage by container. This convention is similar to, and will eventually supersede, the Customs Convention on Containers, 1956 (ECE). It lays down standards for the construction of containers, an approval system, and provides container temporary importation and repair facilities with minimum formalities. Containers approved under the Convention will be accepted for the transport of goods under Customs seal.

Convention on the Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, 1965 (International Maritime Organization)

Contracting Governments undertake to facilitate and expedite international maritime traffic and to prevent unnecessary delays to ships and to persons and property on board. Measures facilitate the arrival, stay and departure of ships of coastal and non-coastal contracting States by simplifying and reducing to a minimum the formalities, documentary requirements and procedures. This includes all documents pertaining to the ship and its passengers, baggage, crew, cargo and mail which are required by Customs, Immigration, Health, and other public authorities.

GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The 1969 text of the General Agreement incorporates the amendments which became effective in 1958 following the introduction of Part IV on Trade and Development which has been accepted by nearly all contracting parties. Some 95 countries have become contracting parties, including all the industrialized (OECD) countries and some 70 developing countries. Articles of the Agreement which are relevant for trade facilitation include Article V, dealing with transit; Article VII, concerning valuation of goods for Customs purposes; Article VIII, dealing with the simplification of documentary requirements; and Article X, concerning the publication and availability of regulations, etc. relating to the classification of goods, valuation, rates of duty, restrictions, prohibitions, etc.

The following Recommendations agreed upon by the Contracting Parties to GATT are also relevant:

1. Recommendations on Certificates of Origin (23 October 1953 and 17 November 1956).

2. Code of Standard Practices for Documentary Requirements for the Importation of Goods (7 November 1952).

3. Recommendations on the Abolition of Consular Formalities (7 November 1952, 30 November 1957 and 31 October 1962).

In the framework of the Uruguay Round of Negotiations, an Agreement on Preshipment Inspection has been agreed to on a provisional basis.

The GATT Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (also known as the Standards Code) aims to ensure that when governments or other bodies adopt technical regulations or standards (including packaging, labelling and marking requirements, and methods of certifying conformity with technical regulations and standards), for reasons of safety, health, consumer or environmental protection, or other purposes, these should not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. It also provides for measures of assistance to developing countries in the application of technical regulations and standards. The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade entered into force on 1 January 1980. In the framework of the Uruguay Round of Negotiations, a number of modifications to the Agreement were agreed to on a provisional basis in 1991.

International Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Control of Goods, 1982 (UN/ECE)

The Convention aims at reducing the requirements for completing formalities as well as the number and duration of controls, in particular through national and international co-ordination of control procedures and of their methods of application. Annexes to the Convention deal with the following types of control: Customs; Medico-sanitary; Veterinary; Phyto-sanitary; Technical standards; Quality.

International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (1983) (Customs Co-operation Council)

The objectives of the Convention include the facilitation of international trade, the standardization of trade documentation and the transmission of data. The collection, comparison and analysis of trade statistics are facilitated by reducing the expense incurred in redescribing, reclassifying and recoding goods from one classification to another.

Convention on International Civil Aviation, 1944 (as amended) (International Civil Aviation Organization)

The Contracting Parties have agreed on certain principles and arrangements in order that international civil aviation may be developed in a safe and orderly manner, that international air transport services may be established on the basis of equality of opportunity, and operated soundly and economically.

Annex 9 of the Convention (Ninth Edition, applicable on 15 November 1990) deals with the facilitation of air traffic. Chapter 4 of the annex entitled "Entry and Departure of Cargo and Other Articles" includes standards and recommended practices designed to facilitate international movement of goods by air.

International Chamber of Commerce

The ICC is a non-governmental organization serving world business. Thousands of companies and business organizations in 110 countries are members. It represents the world business community at national and international levels, promotes world trade and investment based on free and fair competition, harmonizes trade practices, and formulates terminology and guidelines for importers and exporters.

Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits

Documentary credits have become a standard means of settling payment for imports and exports throughout the world. For many years virtually all documentary credit operations have been carried out in accordance with the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP). The most recent version (UCP 500) has been approved by the Banking Commission in March 1993. The implementation date will be 1 January 1994.

Uniform Rules of Conduct for Interchange of Trade Data by Teletransmission (UNCID)

In September 1987, the ICC Executive Board adopted the UNCID rules, which aim at facilitating the interchange of trade data effected by teletransmission, through the establishment of agreed rules of conduct between parties engaged in such transmission.

The UNCID rules are included in the United nations Trade Data Interchange Directory (see below TDID).

International Chamber of Shipping (ICS)

The International Chamber of Shipping is a voluntary association of national organizations founded on the basis of private enterprise and representing shipowners in various countries. Its object is to enable shipping, through international agreement amongst shipowners, to fulfil its primary function - the provision of cheap and efficient sea transport and the development of the freedom of the sea. Its concern is to secure the removal of all unnecessary restrictions on world trade and world sea transport.

The ICS Standard Bill of Lading, aligned to the UN Layout Key, is used worldwide as a basis for the design of B/L forms. The ICS model layout for a Standard Manifest combines, as far as possible, the requirements of both manual and mechanical methods for document preparation.

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

UNCITRAL was created in 1966 by the UN General Assembly in order to enable the United Nations to play a more active role in reducing or removing legal obstacles to the flow of international trade. The mandate given by the General Assembly to UNCITRAL, as the "Core legal body within the United Nations system in the field of international trade law", was to further the progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade.

At its eighteenth session held in June 1985, UNCITRAL adopted a recommendation on legal value of computer records which addresses some of the legal aspects of automatic interchange of trade data. On 11 December 1985, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 40/71 in which it commended UNCITRAL for its Recommendation and called upon Governments and international organizations to take action in conformity with the Commission's recommendation.

International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs Procedures (Kyoto), 1973 (Customs Co-operation Council)

The Kyoto Convention is designed to overcome barriers to international trade that could be created by the diversity and complexity of Customs procedures and documentation in the various countries. The Convention has 31 technical Annexes, each dealing with a specific Customs procedure or activity. Contracting parties undertake to promote the simplification and harmonization of Customs procedures, and, to that end, to conform with the Standards and Recommended Practices contained in the Annexes, but nothing prevents a contracting party from granting greater facilities. A contracting party must accept at least one Annex.

United Nations Trade Data Elements Directory (UNTDED)

Jointly issued by UN/ECE and UNCTAD, the Directory includes the standard data elements and codes agreed by the UN/ECE/Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures (WP.4), and which are intended to facilitate the interchange of data in international trade. They can be used individually but they are mostly used within messages such as those conforming to the EDIFACT syntax rules. Data elements extracted from UNTDED are included in the EDIFACT Data Elements Directory (EDED).

Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 9 of UNTDED constitute International Standard ISO 7372.

United Nations Trade Data Interchange Directory (UNTDID)

UN/EDIFACT (the United Nations rules for Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport) comprise a set of internationally agreed standards, directories, and guidelines for the electronic interchange of structured data, and in particular those related to trade in goods and services, between independent computerized information systems.

Recommended within the framework of the United Nations, the rules are approved and published by UN/ECE in the UNTDID and are maintained under agreed procedures.

UNTDID includes:

the EDIFACT syntax rules (ISO 9735);
Message Design Guidelines;
Syntax Implementation Guidelines;
the EDIFACT Data Elements Directory, EDED (a subset of UNTDED);
the EDIFACT Code List, EDCL;
the EDIFACT Composite Data Elements Directory, EDCD;
the EDIFACT Standard Segments Directory, EDSD;
the EDIFACT UN Standard Messages Directory, EDMD;
Uniform Rules of Conduct for the Interchange of Trade Data by Teletransmission (UNCID);
Explanatory material, as appropriate.

Customs Convention on the International Transport of Goods under cover of TIR Carnets, 1975 (UN/ECE)

The Convention applies to the transport of goods in road vehicles, combinations of vehicles or in containers, across one or more frontiers, provided that some portion of the journey between the beginning and the end of the TIR operation is made by road. The TIR system is based on the following basic rules:

The goods must travel in secure (agreed) vehicles or containers;
Duties and taxes at risk in the transit country must be covered by an internationally valid guarantee;
The goods must be accompanied by an internationally accepted Carnet;
Customs control measures (e.g. seals affixed) taken in the country of departure should be accepted by the countries of transit and destination.

UN/ECE/Working Party on Facilitation of International Trade Procedures (followed by recommendation number; no number indicates current working document)

The Working Party is a worldwide forum for intergovernmental co-operation to reach a consensus on priorities and policies in trade facilitation work and to develop Recommendations for the simplification and standardization of international trade formalities and procedures. The results of its work include aligned trade documents, the UN Trade Data Elements Directory (UNTDED), the UN Trade Data Interchange Directory (UNTDID, which contains the syntax rules and directories for EDI for Administration, Commerce and Transport, UN/EDIFACT), and other formal recommendations.

The Recommendations of the Working Party are jointly issued by UN/ECE and UNCTAD.
Depending on the subject matter, the Recommendations of the Working Party are addressed to governments, to international or national organizations active in the field of international trade, or to companies involved in such activities.
Several Recommendations issued by the Working Party are based on International Standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), or have been endorsed by ISO and issued as International Standards. This is mentioned in the title, and, whenever relevant, in the text of individual recommendations, for example D.3 (use of trade data elements internationally, ISO 7372); D.6 (use of international country codes, ISO 3166); E.11 (use of EDIFACT standards, ISO 9735), etc.

The following Recommendations have been adopted by the Working Party:

Recomendation	Title
No. 1	United Nations Layout Key for Trade Documents, June 1973
No. 2	Location of codes in documents used in international trade, June 1973
No. 3	ISO country code - code for representation of names of countries, October 1974
No. 4	National Trade Facilitation Organs - Arrangements at the national level to co-ordinate work on facilitation of trade procedures, October 1974
No. 5	Abbreviations of INCOTERMS - Alphabetic code for Incoterms 1990, October 1974, revised May 1990
No. 6	Aligned Invoice Layout Key for International Trade, September 1975, revised September 1983
No. 7	Numerical representation of dates, time and periods of time, September 1975, revised September 1988
No. 8	Unique Identification Code Methodology - UNIC, March 1992 (Supersedes Rec. on Common Access Number, February 1978)
No. 9	Alphabetic code for the representation of currencies, February 1978
No. 11	Documentary aspects of the international transport of dangerous goods, February 1978
No. 12	Measures to facilitate maritime transport documents procedures, March 1979 (under revision)
No. 13	Facilitation of identified legal problems in import clearance procedures, March 1979
No. 14	Authentication of trade documents by means other than signature, March 1979
No. 15	Simpler Shipping Marks, September 1979, revised March 1987
No. 16	LOCODE - Code for ports and other locations, September 1980
No. 17	PAYTERMS - Abbreviations for terms of payment, September 1980, revised March 1982
No. 18	Facilitation measures related to international trade procedures, September 1981, revised September 1982
No. 19	Code for Modes of Transport, March 1981
No. 20	Code for Units of Measurement used in international trade, March 1985
No. 21	Codes for types of cargo, packages and packaging materials (with complementary codes for package names), March 1986
No. 22	Layout Key for Standard Consignment Instructions, March 1989
No. 23	Freight Cost Code - FCC - Harmonization of the description of freight costs and other charges, March 1990

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