Poorest Landlocked Nations must be heard on Trade Facilitation, DG tells UN Meeting

Landlocked developing countries face some very specific challenges which can obstruct their integration into the global economy.

The poorer the country, and the fewer resources it has, the more difficult these challenges can be to overcome.

This is not acceptable in the 21st century, when we have the technology in transport and communications to eliminate distance as an economic issue, WTO DG said.

So, in the few minutes I have now, I want to talk briefly about two ways that the WTO can help to improve this situation.

The first area of our work that I’d like to mention is the Aid for Trade initiative.

LLDCs receive comparatively less foreign direct investment than coastal states — and of course they need more help to deal with their specific challenges, such as diversifying export markets, for example, or dealing with bottlenecks in transit.

The Aid for Trade initiative can help to fill this gap. The most recent figures available on Aid-for-Trade flows indicate that commitments to LLDCs stood at 8.8 billion US dollars in 2012, up from 7.2 billion in 2011.

An excellent illustration of this is the corridor in East Africa linking Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The achievements here have been remarkable. For example, the cost of moving a container from Mombasa to Kampala has been cut by almost 50%. And the time taken for goods to complete this journey has been cut from 18 days to just 4.

Reducing costs and delays like this can be the difference between a business failing or thriving.

48 developing country members of the WTO have already taken practical steps to prepare for the Agreement by notifying us of the commitments they are ready to implement. Of those 48, 6 are LLDCs and 10 are transit countries. This is a technical point, but I raise it because it shows that transit measures would likely be put in place as soon as the agreement is implemented. This would be a crucial step for LLDCs.

However, I am sorry to say that WTO members are currently at an impasse on the implementation of the Agreement. This has been the case since July, and we continue to do all we can to ensure that a solution is found.