India improves score in UN trade facilitation survey 2021

INDIA’S score has improved substantially on a trade facilitation survey conducted by the United Nations for 143 countries.

The country scored 90.32 per cent in the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s (UNESCAP) latest Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation, up from 78.49 per cent in 2019.

The survey for 2021 highlighted India’s improvement in the scores on all five key indicators — transparency, formalities, institutional arrangement and cooperation, paperless trade and cross-border paperless trade.

In 2021, India scored 100 per cent under the transparency indicator, against 93.33 per cent in 2019.

The score for ‘paperless trade’ improved to 96.3 per cent from 81.48 per cent, while that for institutional arrangement and cooperation indicator rose to 88.89 per cent from 66.67 per cent.

The survey is conducted every two years and includes an assessment of 58 trade facilitation measures covered by the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.

A country’s good score helps businesses in their investment decisions.

These 58 measures include publications of existing import-export rules on internet, risk management, advance ruling on tariff classification, pre-arrival processing, independent appeal mechanism expedited shipments, automated customs system.

“The CBIC (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs) has been at forefront of path breaking reforms under the umbrella of ‘Turant’ Customs to usher in a Faceless, Paperless and Contactless Customs by way of a series of reforms. This has had a direct impact in terms of the improvement in the UNESCAP rankings on digital and sustainable trade facilitation,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

India is the best performing nation when compared to the South and South West Asia region and Asia Pacific region, the ministry said quoting the survey.

“The overall score of India has also been found to be greater than many OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries) including France, UK, Canada, Norway, Finland etc. and the overall score is greater than the average score of EU,” it added.