Press Release

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UNECE promotes public-private cooperation for trade facilitation and the Single Window in Central Asia

Geneva, 20 October 2009 --

In association with the Customs Committee and Association of Customs Brokers of Kazakhstan, UNECE organized a conference on 15-16 October in Almaty to promote public-private cooperation for trade facilitation and the Single Window in Central Asia – a region where traders across newly introduced international borders are regarded primarily as potential smugglers. The conference was the last of a series of capacity-building seminars on trade facilitation in Central Asia, financed from the fifth tranche UN Development Account project on trade facilitation for the countries participating in the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA). The conference was attended by representatives of the public and private sectors of Kazakhstan and the other SPECA countries.

Kazakhstan Customs and the business community showed deep interest in the Single Window - a concept introduced to the region at the previous seminars under this project and taken up by the Governments and the aid agencies active in the region, such as GTZ, USAID and the Asian Development Bank. In his address to the Conference, the Deputy Prime Minister, Serik Akhmetov, stressed the benefits that Kazakhstan would receive from the introduction of a Single Window system, defined in the UNECE Recommendation 33 as a facility that allows traders to submit all required forms and information only once, to a single agency, in a standard format. In the words of Guennadi Shestakov, representing the private sector at the meeting, Customs and the private sector in Kazakhstan have started serious work on the creation of a Single Window, but what is still missing is the effective collaboration of the other state agencies controlling various aspects of trade information flows.

In this sense, a major objective of the conference was to build further political will and raise the recognition of international standards for trade facilitation and trade document and data exchange. In his address to the Conference, Jàn Kubiš, Executive Secretary of UNECE, stressed that since its independence Kazakhstan has demonstrated a strong potential for stability and economic development, openness and technical skills, notably in using modern information and communication technologies. He said that “Kazakhstan has the capacity to implement successfully such an advanced instrument for trade facilitation and good governance as the Single Window”. With its dual “membership” in both Central Asia and the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, Kazakstan may become a leader in the area of Customs reform and the Single Window.  The Deputy Director of Kazakhstan Customs, Serzhan Duisebaev, stressed that there should be a central document, some form of a Master Plan (following the UNECE recommendations) which would be adopted by all relevant bodies and serve as the agreed guiding document for the implementation of the Single Window.

The Conference established a network of national mechanisms of public-private cooperation for trade facilitation in the SPECA countries, and strongly recommended the establishment of such mechanisms in the countries where they do not yet exist, following the UNECE recommendations and best practice from Europe and Asia, presented at the Conference.

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Ref: ECE/TRADE/09/P09