The task force, appointed by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), has recommended introduction of Multimodal transport operations (MTO) in the Economic Co-operation Organisation (ECO) region, comprising 10 Organisations of Islamic Conference (OIC)/IDB member countries.
This was highlighted by Dr Abu Reza of IDB at the three-day workshop on "Trade and Transport Facilitation among the OIC member states" concluded in Islamabad last week.
According to details available here, Dr Abu Reza made a comprehensive presentation, outlining various steps the bank has taken to introduce transport and trade facilitation measures to promote trade, especially intra-trade, among its 55-member countries.
He said that out of the cumulative gross approvals up to 2003 the bank had made, which was almost 39 billion dollars, almost 37 percent was made for project financing and technical assistance and 61 percent for trade financing.
Of the project financing made, 21 percent was devoted to projects in the transport and communications sector.
The bank also recognised the importance of promoting measures for transport and trade facilitation in some of its member countries.
He outlined various features of the multimodal transportation study, which was presently carried out under the auspices of the ECO.
Some good progress has been made and, in the interim, the study also made a trade facilitation study for the ECO countries. The multimodal study undergoing now will highlight the issues relating to the ECO-wide commodity/trade flows movements, identify infrastructure and operations problems as well as non-physical impediments, make proposals for investments, operational and institutional solutions, and importantly, the accession to the international transport conventions.
As part of the study, trade facilitation measures needed for the ECO countries have been recommended.
The main recommendations relate to tariff laws, adoption of customs codes, World Trade Organisation (WTO) customs valuation, certification standards, conformity and quality of goods indicating harmonisation of standards, certification procedures etc, trade information, customs procedures, transit trade, setting up a bank, a reinsurance company, and a security/escort company, production of shipping and transport document package, international logistics security, adoption of trade and tariff policy.
Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Secretary General Aqeel A. Al-Jaseem, participating in the workshop, called upon the member states to undertake projects, which would lead to the development of trade infrastructure such as highways, railway system and transport companies, which could facilitate low range handling of cargo among member states at cheaper rates and in shorter time.
He covered different aspects related to economic integration of Islamic countries from the perspective of private sector.
All over the world, governments are now confining their roles and are giving the private sector the lead role mainly through privatisation.
The governments' role had emerged as a facilitator and regulator in services and other sectors, he said.
The ICCI Secretary General examined trade and transport facilitation, which is beneficial for the promotion of trade among the nations, ie the simplification, harmonisation, automation and speeding up of the international flows of goods and trade information, had the potential of bolstering economic growth, which had chain effects and would multiply the direct monetary gains several times, generate the majority of the gains from trade facilitation.
To enhance income growth among the OIC countries, the best possible scenario could be to build infrastructure, ie railway communication, he said.
Dr M.A.Mottalib, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology (CIT), Islamic University of Technology (IUT), stressed on efficient trade framework to ease communication hassle to regularise a flexible way of transportation of goods among the OIC member countries.
It has been observed that the exports and imports have a clear relationship with the CIT infrastructure, like telephone density, internet penetration rate, etc. Thus the CIT infrastructure development should emphasise to enhance the trade situation.
He asserted: "We have to increase the information sharing, bilateral trade among the OIC countries in an easier way, not by tight security.
"It is time for capacity-building; it is time for building confidence," he said.
Expert Consultant from Islamic Centre for Development of Trade (ICDT) Mustapha Allali, in his presentation on the simplification of the procedures of the international trade and the trade efficiency between the states of the OIC, pointed out that the OIC countries were differently involved in this process.
"Some of them seem to have managed to through this process in a successful manner in so far as important reforms in the field of trade facilitation have been initiated and have drawn closer the foreign trade procedural system to international norms and standards," he said.
He pointed out that an excessive formalism both at import and export levels of goods between the OIC countries, hampered competitiveness of export enterprises by heavy administrative documents and formalities required by national legislations and especially, the inopportune and nit-picking controls of various intervening parties of the chain of the customs clearance process, from customs warehousing to the physical checking of goods.
A rational position of Islamic countries implies the setting up of a focal point in each Islamic country whose task would be to ensure the co-ordination and follow up of the works at national and regional levels as well as at the international level with a view to defining the position of Islamic countries relating to trade facilitation.
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