Trade Facilitation and the Global Economy
In a globalised world, where goods cross borders many times as intermediate and as final products, trade facilitation is essential to lowering overall trade costs and increasing economic welfare, in particular for developing and emerging economies. Facilitation efforts undertaken by various countries around the world also show that the benefits of such measures clearly compensate the costs and challenges posed by their implementation.
Overview
This chapter discusses the role of trade facilitation in the global economy: what it means and why it matters. It introduces the OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators (TFIs), a set of leading edge tools to assist policy makers in identifying, prioritising, and reaching their trade facilitation objectives. It concludes with a short overview of the publication.