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Books/Chapters of Books
Handbook of Best Practices at Border Crossings – A Trade and Transport Facilitation Perspective, OSCE - UNECE, February 2012. Growing cross-border trade and transportation in the globalized world economy are compelling governments to develop more efficient border management procedures. Cumbersome procedures at borders increase the cost of transport operations, hampering international trade and foreign investment. With this in mind, the Handbook provides tools that can be used to harmonize and simplify existing procedures and regulations and to improve inter-agency co-operation. It also draws attention to the need to apply best practices and internationally accepted norms and standards.
Connecting Landlocked Developing Countries to Markets
Jean-Francois Arvis, Graham Smith and Robin Carruthers, April 2011. World Bank.
This book aims to help the policymaker and development community in general to understand the nature of the problems and policy dilemmas that landlocked countries face to trade with the rest of the World. This volume presents an important contribution to the existing literature, by focusing on a new conceptual framework that challenges the previous paradigm based on physical infrastructure and state-led access solutions, embodied in many treaties. Suggesting that the main access problems for landlocked countries occur in the territory of the transit country, this volume provides a new approach to understand the set of incentives that drive the political economy and shape the institutions governing goods’ transit along corridors. Overall, the policy levers available to overcome these barriers are based on universally applied principles, recognizing the need for re-engineering current transit regimes which have been implemented with little success outside Europe. A risk-approach to border control and technology use, along with trust building between private operators and public agencies, all point toward the need to encourage and formally recognize higher-quality trucking companies. Meanwhile, other modes of transportation represent an alternative to road transit, but they also entail disadvantages, suggesting that their role is likely to remain limited to niche segments, specific commodities and exceptional market circumstances.
Ken Gwilliam, March 2011. World Bank.
The analysis reveals that road networks are generally less dense, both per square kilometer and per capita, than in other regions. However, because incomes are low, the financial burden is greater than elsewhere. As a consequence, maintenance has been neglected and the condition of the infrastructure has deteriorated, increasing the costs of operations. This situation is accentuated by failures in the management and regulation of operators. The book presents financing trends and compares them with estimated expenditure needs. It shows that backlogs in routine and periodic maintenance have built up needs for rehabilitation that cannot be satisfied from domestic sources alone. It shows, both functionally and geographically, where major shortfalls are likely to occur and where priorities are highest, stressing the need to mobilize a wide range of sources for investment finance. The book concludes, however, that investment is only part of what is needed to improve the transport system. Unless that investment is accompanied by increased attention to maintenance finance and by substantial improvements in system management, the cost of transport in the region will continue to be a serious impediment to economic growth.
Edited by Peter Hall, Robert J. McCalla, Claude Comtois, and Brian Slack, January 2011.
Seaport gateways and the corridors that connect them to widely dispersed hinterlands are of vital and essential importance to international trade and the world economy. Distributing goods to ultimate land destinations or bringing the goods to seaports from inland origins is organizationally complex involving multiple actors. This book furthers understanding about how this movement is organized and the role of ports acting as gateways and the actions of corridor players. A key question that confronts the shipping and port industries as well as public authorities is how to increase the benefits of maritime trade to the companies and institutions directly involved as well as the port city-regions where the transfers take place. This question is being posed in the midst of a global economic recession and trade downturn, and in the context of contemporary policy frameworks whose goals are to generate economic benefits and efficiencies rather than to maximize traffic volumes. This book puts into perspective the reality, opportunities and challenges facing seaport gateways and corridors now and in the future.
Monica Alina Mustra, November 2010. Chapter 3 of “Border Management Modernization” by Gerard McLinden, Enrique Fanta, David Widdowson and Tom Doyle, Eds, World Bank.
Trade facilitation helps countries achieve national development objectives. It makes them more competitive, allowing goods and services to be traded on time and at low transaction cost. But many developing countries will be unable to take advantage of international trade opportunities unless they can go beyond the traditional reform agenda—almost exclusively dedicated to customs reform and hard infrastructure—and invest in areas where trade is most constrained. Facilitating trade may require reforming and modernizing border management institutions, changing transport regulation policy, and investing in infrastructure. A trade supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Locating the weakest links and addressing them through targeted development interventions has therefore become a major element of the new trade facilitation and logistics agenda.
Douglas H. Brooks and Susan F. Stone, Editors, August 2010. Edward Elgar Publishing.
This insightful book collects empirical analyses and case studies to clarify issues and draw policy recommendations for facilitating greater regional trade through increased cooperation. Asia’s rapid development has been heavily dependent on markets external to the region. However, given the unlikely timely recovery of the United States or Europe there is an urgent need to develop domestic and regional markets. While greater integration has long been a regional goal, its importance has never been more pressing. To facilitate trade and promote growth and regional integration, and to counteract declining markets in other regions, Asian countries have announced large expenditures for developing infrastructure. Thus, a look at how investment in regional infrastructure promotes and supports interregional trade growth has never been timelier. While the focus is on informing policy-making in Asia, the findings also have relevance for other regions. The detailed studies in this book will be of particular interest to academic economists, policy-makers, and the broader development community.
Jean-François Arvis, Gaël Raballand and Jean-François Marteau, July 2010. World Bank.
The Cost of Being Landlocked proposes a new analytical framework to interpret and model the constraints faced by logistics chains on international trade corridors. The plight of landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) has naturally received special attention for decades, leading to a specific set of development priorities based upon the concept of dependence on the transit state. Therefore, the standard approach used to tackle the cost of being landlocked has been predominantly aimed at developing regional transport infrastructure and ensuring freedom of transit through regional conventions. But without sufficient attention given to the performance of logistics service delivery to traders, the standard approach is unable to address key bottleneck concerns and the factors that contribute to the cost of being landlocked. Consequently, the impact of massive investment on trade corridors could not materialize to its full extent. Based on extensive data collection in several regions of the world, this book argues that although landlocked developing countries do face high logistics costs, these costs are not a result of poor road infrastructure, since transport prices largely depend on trucking market structure and implementation of transit processes. This book suggests that high logistics costs in LLDCs are a result of low logistics reliability and predictability, which stem from rent-seeking and governance issues. The Cost of Being Landlocked will serve as a useful guide for policy makers, supervisory authorities, and development agencies.
UNECA, Arican Union, African Development Bank, May 2010. Chapter 7 of “Assessing Regional Integration in Africa IV: Enhancing Intra-Africa Trade”
Policymakers of landlocked countries should be concerned about the impact of their countries’ geographical locations on international trade for several reasons. ECA research indicates that distance to maritime posts is correlated to transport costs. High costs erode their competitive edge and trade volume. The trade-reducing effect is strongest for transport-intensive activities that depend on exports or imported intermediate goods for production. According to ECA estimates landlocked developing countries spend almost two times more of their export earnings on transport and insurance services, on average, than developing countries, and three times more than developed economies.
African Union, African Development Bank and Economic Commission for Africa, 2010.
Chapter 7 of “Assessing Regional Integration in Africa IV, Enhancing Intra-African Trade”
To address the special needs of the African landlocked nations, certain trade and transport transit corridors have been established—routes linking several economic centres, countries and ports. These corridors, networks of transport facilities and infrastructure, have been established either through existing routes that are accepted by custom authorities, RECs protocols or protocols involving concerned landlocked and transit countries. To coordinate the complex transport logistics and challenges, corridor management institutions are being established in Africa through agreements signed by all participating countries and private-sector stakeholders. These institutions oversee all aspects of the transport of goods throughout a given corridor. This chapter discusses selected African corridor management arrangements.
Jean-Francois Arvis, 2010. Chapter 17 of “Border Management Modernization”, by Gerard McLinden Enrique Fanta, David Widdowson, and Tom Doyle, eds., World Bank.
Transit regimes are based on three universal components: bonds, manifests and the process for authorizing transit operations. Inefficiency can be traced to the deviant implementation of one or more of these principles---due to a lack of trust, weak compliance or to accommodate local interests. Chaining transit regimes across borders into door to door carnet systems has obvious advantages. Policymakers need a comprehensive approach to transit related policies beyond the customs transit regime: associated transport policies, infrastructure policies and corridor cooperation policies. A transit regime does not need a heavy information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, nor one that is distinct from the pre-existing customs ICT module. Transit requires the tracing of manifests and carnets, for which real time technologies—such as e-seals using the global positioning system (GPS)—are neither essential nor always desirable.
UNESCAP, November 2009.
This reference book aims to support the implementation of trade facilitation measures in Asia and the Pacific. It attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice in trade facilitation. It provides operational guidance on how to assess the status of trade facilitation, what measures and reforms are necessary, how to design trade facilitation initiatives, how to implement them at national and regional levels, and which organizations can help. The book intends to provide material for training on regional trade policy and help shape future trade facilitation measures in Asia and the Pacific. It is the outcome of a collaborative effort between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
World Bank, June 2009.
This practical tool identifies the obstacles to the fluidity of trade supply chains. Taking the perspective of service delivery to traders, the TTFA assessment is founded on facts and data collected through a series of meetings and interviews with the main public and private participants to these international supply chains. They include customs and other border agencies, transport regulators, freight forwarders, transport operators, ports, and others. The toolkit helps design plans of action to improve logistics performance among its three main dimensions: infrastructure, services, and procedures and processes. This new edition of the toolkit provides an opportunity not only to reflect the changes in the trade environment and the need for additional features in the toolkit, but also to benefit from the experiences of the assessments already undertaken based on the original edition. The toolkit is designed to help by providing a first cut at identifying the bottlenecks and break the ground for in-depth work. Its scope is very comprehensive, yet it is not an encyclopedia of trade and logistics, but rather a guidebook. Readers in need of more information in any of the specific sub-areas are invited to use specialized resources made available by various international sources. The World Bank is currently issuing toolkits for border management, port reform, supply chain security, and transit corridors. We are fully confident that this document will be a useful guide that will help implement this important agenda in an increasing number of countries.
Douglas Brooks, and David Hummels, 2009. Asian Development Bank Institute, 2009
Infrastructure is shown to be a cost-effective means of lowering trade costs and thereby promoting regional growth and integration. This book combines thematic and country studies, while breaking new ground in quantifying infrastructure's impact on Asia's trade costs. The contributors add to empirical estimates of Asia's trade costs and infrastructure's influence on those costs while also contributing to a better understanding of the region's logistics challenges. The book includes interesting case studies of rapid growth and congestion (in China), inland transportation challenges (India), port competition in an archipelago (Indonesia) and transportation modal switching as value-added rises (Malaysia) that are policy- and project-relevant in their own right. The analysis and policy implications in this book will be of interest to trade and infrastructure policy-makers and academics at graduate and higher levels involved in economic development or Asian studies, as well as the broader development community.
Supee Teravaninthorn, and Gael Raballand, October 2008. World Bank.
Transport prices for most African landlocked countries range from 15 to 20 percent of import costs. This is approximately two to three times more than in most developed countries. It is well known that weak infrastructure can account for low trade performance. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand what types of regional transport services operate in landlocked African nations and it is critical to identify the regulation disparities and provision anomalies that hurt infrastructure efficiency, even when the physical infrastructure such as a road transport corridor exists. Transport Prices and Costs in Africa analyzes the various reasons for poor transport performance seen widely throughout Africa and provides a compelling case for a number of national and regional reforms that are vital to the effort to address the underlying causes of high transport prices and costs and service unpredictability seen in Africa.
Sonam Tobgay, and Ellen B. McCullough, August 2008. Chapter 13 of “The Transformation of Agri-food Systems: Globalization, Supply Chains and Smallholder Farmers,” by Prabhu Pingali, Ellen B. McCullough and Kostas G. Stamoulis, eds.
Limited access to markets contributes to high marketing costs and poses a major deterrent to commercialization. Bhutan’s poor road infrastructure and a lack of market institutions have deterred market participation for smallholders. Price transmission is low and price changes in urban markets are not fully transmitted to producers and traders, whose prices are volatile and drop drastically even with a small increase in market arrivals. Without effective competition among market agents, those with larger market power control prices. This is evident in the case of mandarin exports to Bangladesh where importers negotiate prices prior to the trading season. In this study, the authors use village and household surveys to explore trends in small-holder commercialization. They present new quantitative evidence highlighting road access as a major constraint to market participation. However, limited market infrastructure and institutions further constrain market behaviour and influence production decisions. As long as marketing costs remain high and marketed volumes remain small, market participation will be a risky prospect for Bhutan’s smallholders, particularly those located in remote areas.
Wim Naudé, and Marianne Matthee, August 2007. United Nations University.
High transport costs pose a significant barrier to development in Africa. Causing friction in the movement of labour and goods, transport costs effectively reduce the markets for labour and goods, and for the transmission of knowledge and technologies. Reducing transport costs in contemporary Africa has become even more of a priority, with many countries having reduced tariffs on their international trade, and as protectionism in developed countries are scaled down. The success of Africa’s exports, as well as its rural and more generally its spatial development, now depend on lowering its transport costs. This Policy Brief addresses a number of pertinent questions on transport costs in Africa, such as ‘what are transport costs?’, ‘do transport costs matter for trade?’, ‘how important are transport costs in practice?’, and ‘why are Africa’s transport costs so high?’. The authors present a case study of the firm location decisions of exporters in South Africa to illustrate the significance in particular of domestic transport costs for international trade. They conclude by discussing various policy options that can be taken to reduce transport costs in Africa.
Kishor Uprety, November 2005. World Bank.
The Transit Regime for Landlocked States' assesses the strengths and limits of existing international law related to the free access of landlocked states to and from the sea. The book analyzes whether the provisions of international law satisfy the economic demands of landlocked states, the majority of which are among the world's poorest nations. The book reviews the several principles of international law that dominated the evolution of the rights of access. It discusses both general and specific conventions, as well as treaty regimes emanating from there and examines some restrictions imposed by some of those conventions, part of which are challenged by landlocked states. The book briefly comments on the ongoing international initiatives and developments aimed at addressing the theoretical as well as practical problems faced by landlocked states. These developments, which have led to the creation of legal instruments with normative value, underscore the evolutionary nature of international law as well as the perennial efforts associated with its development.
Jean François Arvis, 2005. Chapter 11 of “Customs Modernization Handbook”, By Luc De Wulf and José B. Sokol, eds., World Bank.
Most transit takes place between landlocked countries and countries with access to the sea. In some instances, transit is simply from one country to the destination country, and borders are crossed only once. In other instances the transit shipment crosses several borders, as is the case when a shipment goes from the Netherlands to Russia, and crosses Germany and Poland. In other cases the cargo originates and ends up in the same territory, but transits through a second country. For example, commodities destined for the northeastern part of India that originate from other parts of India transit. Bangladesh, as all alternative Indian routes are much longer. This chapter focuses on international transit. The first section reviews the general principles of transit while the second section details a typical transit operation. The third section reviews existing major transit arrangements based on the Transport International Routier (TIR). The fourth section presents various institutions set up to facilitate transit, such as bilateral and regional agreements. The final section provides some operational conclusions.
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Last updated: April 2012
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication
do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
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