This report presents results of the 2021 United Nations Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation for four countries in East and North-East Asia, namely China, Japan, Republic of Korea and Mongolia, reviewing the progress of trade facilitation reforms. It presents a detailed analysis based on 58 trade facilitation measures that are classified into four groups (“General Trade Facilitation”, “Digital Trade Facilitation”, “Sustainable Trade Facilitation” and “Other Trade Facilitation”) and a further 11 sub-groups covering both binding and non-binding WTO TFA measures, as well as measures beyond the scope of WTO TFA.

The analysis presented in this report, based on the latest data available, confirms that digital trade facilitation measures can result in significant benefits to the countries in the subregion. Full implementation of binding and non-binding WTO TFA measures could decrease trade costs by 2.8%. In contrast, digital trade facilitation measures, enabling the seamless electronic exchange of trade data and documents across borders, will help significantly reduce trade costs by 7.5% for East and North-East Asian countries in a full implementation scenario.

In this regard, the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (CPTA) could support countries in gradually moving to “less-paper” and then to paperless and cross-border paperless trade by providing a dedicated, inclusive and capacity-building focused intergovernmental platform.

For more reports, please visit untfsurvey.org