In the wake of the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, characterized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, countries around the world have adopted a range of trade and border protection measures to try to contain the spread of the disease across borders. Such measures have had an immediate and severe impact on economic activities and caused major disruptions to supply chains.
Since trade facilitation is a key policy tool that can help countries mitigate some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Customs Organization (WCO) has partnered with WTO, UNCTAD, CSSO, GATF, IATA and ITC to develop a COVID-19 trade facilitation repository in which all these actions are consolidated.
The repository acts as a platform that consolidates trade facilitation initiatives adopted by organizations and stakeholders, seeking to provide access to these resources in a unique and easy to use databaseIt contains a useful list of all such initiatives broken down by organisation, type of measure and topic. As the situation evolves and additional measures are taken, the platform will be expanded to include other key actors working in the area of trade facilitation.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its unprecedented health and economic impacts, the WCO and other international organizations, NGOs, business associations and other representative bodies have redeployed resources to develop new instruments, tools and guidance materials on trade facilitation measures. These documents can be a useful source of information for countries to learn from each other, share best practices and experiences, and serve as inspiration for designing specific policy responses.However, these resources were dispersed across a multitude of platforms. This initiative will help ensure that the smooth flow of safe cross-border trade continues, especially with respect to essential goods that are crucial to combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID19 Trade Facilitation Repository can be accessed through the following link and will be updated periodically to reflect new guidance material developed.
Source: WCO
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