Brussels, 25/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - Meeting under the auspices of the World Partnership for the Facilitation of Transport and Trade (GPF), the representatives from 34 countries, 17 international organisations and the private sector, underlined the need to develop a global approach in this area, which encourages institutions such as the European Union, WTO, the World Customs Organisation, UN agencies to take on board the importance of trade in economic growth in developing countries.
Michel Zarnowiecki, Principal Regional Coordinator of the infrastructures and energy department at the World Bank explained that finding global solutions for facilitating trade would considerably modify perspectives in developing countries in the context of economic growth and the fight against poverty, provided they try their best to get rid of all discrimination between countries, help developing countries to improve their transport and management systems and encourage foreign investment. Mr Zarowiecki said that this would constitute a priority for the institution (which is behind the GFP)). The GFP brings together around one hundred partners from developed and developing countries, as well as international organisations and associations from the private sector, which aims to study all the different aspects of trade facilitation, ranging from customs problems to transport and cross border operations, in order to reduce bureaucracy and strengthen trade and economic development, while guaranteeing security - another aspect of the same problem. According to the participants from the Brussels meeting, the necessity to reinforce security also requires a global response by way of more efforts deployed by cross border services under the supervision of the customs services. More generally, they point out that the effect of an absence of transport, logistical functions, logistical management chain of command, as well as integrated and effective customs systems on a local, regional and world level, has a very high cost to pay for developing countries. One example of this is the fact that the OECD believes that because of the new security environment since the events of 11 September 2001, the accumulated losses in social payments have reached USD 75 million on a world level. According to the analysis of the spending for making trade secure (referred to by one participant), each day's delay in multi-modal transport of goods provokes costs that are equivalent to the values of the goods, additional costs that developing countries find difficult to bear.