{"id":79135,"date":"2017-02-22T12:53:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T12:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=aa4578fe256399c0a1599cd27e00943c"},"modified":"2017-02-22T12:53:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T12:53:59","slug":"press-release-historic-wto-agreement-will-reduce-exporting-red-tape-and-boost-uk-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=79135","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Historic WTO agreement will reduce exporting red tape and boost UK trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The first multilateral agreement successfully negotiated through the <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr>, and now ratified by more than 110 countries, will come into force immediately and will see <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr> members benefit from greater trade by cutting burdensome red tape associated with goods exporting.<\/p>\n<p>Once fully implemented, the global economy could see a benefit of \u00a370 billion.<\/p>\n<p>International Trade Secretary, Dr. Liam Fox, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">We have fully supported this historic agreement which will remove some of the barriers to cross-border trade and could benefit the UK economy by up to \u00a31 billion. We will now work with other <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr> members to ensure economies, both developed and developing, fully realise the benefits it will bring to their citizens.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">The UK has long supported initiatives that will make trade across borders easier, but despite the work that has already been done on border controls until now goods have continued to be delayed at borders slowing trade flows and adding costs to business which in turn might be passed on to consumers. We welcome this <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr> success story.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Over three-quarters of the <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr>\u2019s members are either developing or transitioning into market economies. The Trade Facilitation Agreement (<abbr title=\"Trade Facilitation Agreement\">TFA<\/abbr>) will have the greatest impact for the economies of the world\u2019s poorest nations &#8211; to sub-Saharan economies this could be upwards of $10billion per year.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the <abbr title=\"Trade Facilitation Agreement\">TFA<\/abbr>, those countries that have ratified will be required to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>publish fees and charges online<\/li>\n<li>introduce a \u2018fast track\u2019 for perishable goods \u2013 reducing the amount of food that rots while waiting to cross borders<\/li>\n<li>allow pre-arrival processing of documentation<\/li>\n<li>allow the use of copies of documents, rather than originals<\/li>\n<li>allow for the right to appeal customs decisions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By helping to improve transparency, predictability and consistency, the <abbr title=\"Trade Facilitation Agreement\">TFA<\/abbr> should lead to reduced trade costs and create the environment for small and medium sized enterprises to play a greater role in the international supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>Studies suggest the agreement \u2013 which largely concerns the cost of clearing goods for import and export \u2013 will greatly reduce costs, time and the number of documents required for goods to cross borders. They also suggest the <abbr title=\"Trade Facilitation Agreement\">TFA<\/abbr> could add over \u00a370 billion to the global economy, of which the UK is expected to benefit by up to \u00a31 billion and could reduce worldwide trade costs by between 12.5% and 17.5%.<\/p>\n<p>Negotiations on the Trade Facilitation Agreement were concluded at the <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr>\u2019s Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013 and since then work has been under way to reach the two-thirds of <abbr title=\"World Trade Organisation\">WTO<\/abbr> Members ratifications required for the <abbr title=\"Trade Facilitation Agreement\">TFA<\/abbr> to come into force.<\/p>\n<p>It has long been shown that trade lifts countries out of poverty and the UK will continue to work with developing countries to help them ratify and implement the agreement to ensure they benefit from reduced trade costs and waiting times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A ground breaking global agreement to make it easier to trade across borders will enter into force following ratification by two-thirds of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}