Strengthening international trade performance through the identification, assessment, and improvement of the processes supporting international trade transactions has become a priority for all national governments. This is why, following discussions among UNECE member States on the future direction of the Committee on Trade, the Executive Committee (EXCOM) recommended at its thirty-fourth meeting of February 2010 that the UNECE Committee on Trade should carry out trade needs assessments in countries with transition economies as part of its Aid for Trade Programme.
The focus of these assessments is on procedural and regulatory barriers to trade. Their aim is to identify needs in individual UNECE member countries and/or sub-regional groupings on how to improve their trading environment and inform donors on where assistance might be required. They will also help to inform policy discussions within the Committee on Trade and its subsidiary bodies on where additional work is required.
The overall objective is to assist countries with economies in transition in the UNECE region to integrate into their national development frameworks actions to reduce regulatory and procedural barriers to trade and improve the trading environment in their countries in a way that supports sustainable economic growth and a more rapid achievement of development objectives and the Millennium Development Goals as part of their respective Aid for Trade Programmes. The studies help countries to evaluate their existing regulatory and procedural trade environments and then to identify policy recommendations and technical assistance needs which address the identified barriers to trade. All needs assessments will be based on a common methodology designed to take advantage of other, existing, work in this area and with the objective of developing measurements that are comparable and will allow comparisons across countries and time.
Methodology: ENG RUS
Trade Needs Assessment Study on Belarus: ENG RUS
UNECE trade-needs assessment study on Belarus: follow-up and policy implications: ENG RUS
UNECE trade needs assessment study on Kazakhstan: Main findings: ENG
