The Global Trade Facilitation Programme (GTFP), a joint initiative between the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the World Customs Organization (WCO), is extending its continuity into a fifth year of activities, a sign of increasing success in overcoming the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The extension was confirmed by a WCO statement: “This favourable decision follows the request for a 12-month no-cost extension of the GTFP and the subsequent amendment to the Contribution Agreement between SECO and the WCO, which formalizes the extension of the Program's implementation period until December 2023".
This comprehensive 4-year program (2018-2022) supporting the strengthening of organizational and technical capacities began with four countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Uzbekistan) and spread to Serbia and Ukraine. Additionally, Guatemala and Bangladesh joined the initiative as beneficiaries (Type 2: Light Intervention Countries) with ad-hoc interventions on specific trade facilitation issues.
According to the WCO, the Programme is currently in its third year of implementation and has successfully completed more than 45% of the overall planned activities and achieved significant progress towards the Programme objectives and outcomes, achieving more than 50% in 2 of the 4 expected outcomes and reaching 25% of global outputs for the Organisational Development and Trade Facilitation components, despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Currently, as the epidemiological situation improves, the extension for an additional 12-month period should allow the GTFP Program to make significant progress towards achieving the initial goals, with face-to-face technical assistance and training activities in the next year and a half.
In this way, one of the central objectives of the GTFP Program will be fulfilled, which is to “provide Administrations with a solid base for future work in the identified areas, as well as for the development of their organizational, institutional and infrastructure capacities in an autonomous manner,” the statement concludes. (WCO Press Release)
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