Publication: Belarus: Enhancing Border-Crossing Time Release Studies to Support Trade Facilitation Reforms
Loading...
Files in English
242 downloads
Published
2017-05
ISSN
Date
2017-07-12
Editor(s)
Abstract
Belarus is a member of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), bordering three European Union (EU) countries (Poland,Lithuania and Latvia), Ukraine and Russia. As such, the country is strategically located for international transit trade. With the aim of boosting the country’s transit role, the government of Belarus is undertaking several infrastructure development projects and regulatory reforms aimed at trade facilitation. Government undertook a Two agencies at the border reform with the goal of reducing the number of agencies at the border to only two, namely Customs and the Border Police. Belarus’s efforts were supported by the World Bank Group (WBG), including the World Bank’s Transit Corridor Improvement Project (TCIP), which is financing the modernization of the transit Corridor-M6 Minsk-Grodno, and the Belarus Business Regulation and National Quality Infrastructure Advisory Project of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) with the aim of improving trade procedures. Border-crossing time release studies are powerful tools for analyzing trade logistics and measuring the performance of border agencies. Insights from a border-crossing study can help in designing and accelerating trade facilitation reforms. Preparing and carrying out an effective study is a challenging exercise in itself, as it involves sensitive data, and complex multi-agency and cross-country relationships. The border-crossing time release study for commercial cargo undertaken by the World Bank Group’s (WBG's) Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice team in Belarus in 2015 is an example that provides important lessons that may be useful for other countries. In this context, the border crossing time release study (BCTR study) was designed by the two WBG project teams, and implemented in close cooperation with the State Customs Committee of Belarus.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gabrielyan, Gagik; Kerswell, Clayton; Shemshenya, Irina; Abrashkevich, Aliaksandr. 2017. Belarus: Enhancing Border-Crossing Time Release Studies to Support Trade Facilitation Reforms. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27549 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Belarus - Industrial Performance Before and During the Global Crisis : Belarus Economic Policy Notes : Note No. 2(World Bank, 2010-06-25)This note attempts to analyze and tentatively answer these questions by focusing on the drivers of growth and productivity, labor markets and enterprise restructuring, as well as the state system of enterprise support, which is key to understanding the interplay between the state and the economy in Belarus. The period of analysis covers 2004-08 with appropriate references to the previous periods and comparisons with Russia and/or other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The final section explores the Belarus's industrial performance in the period of the global crisis (late 2008-09) and reviews the government's policies that have been largely responsible for a relatively mild effect of the crisis on economic dynamics in the country. The analysis is based on the official statistics provided to the team by the National Statistics Committee (Belstat), National Bank, and various ministries, as well as statistics from other national and international statistical sources. In addition, the analysis benefited from the data provided by various enterprise surveys undertaken by the Research Institute by the Ministry of Economy (RIME) and from two sector case studies (in machinery and dairy sub-sectors). Belarus has weathered the crisis so far better than most of its neighbors, in part due to the government policies to boost domestic demand in a predominantly state-owned and controlled economy. This was achieved at a considerable macroeconomic cost. The country's ability to sustain possible future shocks declined, and macroeconomic risks increased. The crisis has further exposed risks associated with the Government of Belarus (GOB) practice of heavy reliance on administratively set targets for large and medium-size enterprises, especially targets for output and average wage growth.Publication Doing Business 2014 Economy Profile : Belarus(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2013-10-29)This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Belarus. In a series of annual reports, Doing Business assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in 189 economies and ranks the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders. This year's report data cover regulations measured from June 2012 through May 2013. The report is the 11th edition of the Doing Business series.Publication Republic of Belarus : Corruption Vulnerability Scan(Washington, DC, 2007-05-23)The Corruption Vulnerability Scan (CVS) is an internal Bank document aimed at providing a better understanding on the Bank's vulnerability in extending assistance to Belarus, and making suggestions as to how to reduce risks in the use of Bank funds, while improving results on the ground. The CVS team visited Belarus in March 2007. Its main conclusion is that the vulnerability to corruption of Bank funds and activities funded from loan proceeds in Belarus is low, as long as Bank fiduciary procedures are used and implementation is closely supervised. The report is in three parts: Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Belarus, Public Finance Management and the Bank Portfolio.Publication Colombia : Country Economic Memorandum, The Foundations for Competitiveness(Washington, DC, 2005-11)Since Colombia's last Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) (1989) the country has endured several years of slow growth, burgeoning fiscal deficits, and high levels of debt. Colombia now is seeking to join a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States in the hope of stimulating growth and improving living conditions for the country as a whole. In response to the opportunities and challenges presented by the proposed FTA with the United States, the Colombian government has launched an "internal agenda," an action plan that involves major stakeholders -- public sector, private sector, and regional government -- aimed at obtaining greater levels of competitiveness. The government has articulated the need for greater understanding of the impact of the proposed FTA, and a strategy for a reform agenda that would enable the country to capture the potential benefits from freer trade and facilitate the transition to greater openness. This report is produced as an input into Colombia's reform agenda. It starts with an executive summary and policy report which presents the main findings and key policy recommendations of the three chapters comprising the report. Chapter 1 evaluates Colombia's business and growth environment and the likely challenges the manufacturing sector will face in taking advantage of the FTA with the United States. The chapter consists of three sections. Section I uses detailed survey data to identify the top constraints on growth and competitiveness of Colombian firms. Section 2 analyzes key developments in the manufacturing sector following the trade liberalization of 1990-91 using micro-level data, and highlights areas where reforms are needed. Section 3 examines the challenges and opportunities faced by small and medium-sized businesses in confronting a more open trading environment. Chapter 2 builds on the microeconomic issues raised in the first chapter, and follows with an evaluation of macroeconomic and fiscal (tax and expenditure) policies that are important for making the Colombian economy competitive. In this context, the study also evaluates the sustainability and trajectory of public debt. Finally, Chapter 3 examines the likely impact of agricultural liberalization on income distribution in the country under the proposed Colombian-U.S. FTA -- identifying who are the likely gainers and losers -- and assesses its impact on economic growth and poverty in the country.Publication Aid for Trade, Infrastructure, and the Growth Effects of Trade Reform : Issues and Implications for Caribbean Countries(2010-04-01)This paper examines how aid-for-trade programs can help to magnify the growth benefits that developing countries can reap from trade reform and global integration, with a special emphasis on the Caribbean region. The first part discusses various rationales for trade-related aid, viewed both as a compensatory scheme (aimed at cushioning the impact of revenue cuts and adjustment costs) and a promotion scheme (aimed at alleviating supply-side constraints). In the latter case, particular attention is paid to the role of infrastructure as a constraining factor on trade expansion. The second part discusses the relevance of aid-for-trade arguments for Caribbean countries and identifies a number of specific issues for the region. The third part illustrates the potential growth effects of aid-for-trade programs with simulation results for the Dominican Republic -- a country where infrastructure indicators remain relatively weak. The results illustrate the potentially large growth benefits that a temporary and well-targeted aid-for-trade program can provide to countries of the region.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Papua New Guinea Trade Facilitation Challenges for Women Traders and Freight Forwarders(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01)Trade is widely recognized to be an engine of growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. There is a global lack of data on how trade facilitation interventions impact traders by gender at the firm level. This lack of data may also reinforce the bias against women in trade policy making. To help fill the data gap with an aim to better inform future design and implementation of trade facilitation projects, the World Bank Group (WBG) has collected data through a survey on cross-border trade challenges faced by both women and men at the firm level in the Pacific Islands region. This note presents findings of the survey work in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The survey has highlighted several areas that could be addressed by the government of PNG to improve the trade facilitation environment in PNG. Specific emphasis in the recommendations has been made to address asymmetric gender barriers that occur in cross-border trade. This report presents the results of a survey undertaken in Papua New Guinea from February to March 2020 with the intention to identify specific challenges cross-border traders are facing related to trade facilitation at the firm level.Publication Customs, Brokers, and Informal Sectors : A Cameroon Case Study(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)Based on extensive interviews with informal importers and brokers in Cameroon, this paper explains why customs reform aimed at reducing fraud and corruption may be difficult to achieve. Informal traders and brokers (without licenses) follow various business models and practices, which are product-specific. Overall, what matters first are customs brokers' practices. Information asymmetries mark transactions between brokers and importers and are accompanied by misperceptions of the costs and risks of informal brokers working among informal importers. In a low-governance environment with widespread informal practices, blanket policies should be avoided in order to discourage activities of unprofessional and systematic bribe-taker brokers. It is also essential that customs officials disrupt information asymmetries and better disseminate information to informal importers on customs processes and official costs. Finally, customs should more strongly sanction some informal brokers in order to reduce collusion with some customs officers.Publication Accelerating Digitalization(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12)The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has upended lives and brought major disruption to economic activity across the world, precipitating an unprecedented global health and economic crisis. One of the key lessons learned early in the pandemic was the need to ensure business continuity of the critical supply lines, notably the maritime gateways, and the associated logistical chains. However, the maritime ports are also just one node in a complex logistical chain involving a number of interactions; digitization is vital to improving the competitiveness of that chain. A number of global organizations, such as United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), World Customs Organization (WCO), World Trade Organization (WTO), and International Maritime Organization (IMO) have been advocating the accelerated digitalization of cross-border processes and documentation. This report highlights the immediate, short-, and medium-term measures considered necessary to strengthen the resilience of the maritime and logistics sector, to build back better, and more importantly ensure countries realize the significant potential efficiency gains of digitization. This report underlines digitalization as not solely a technological issue, but also as human capital and institutional issues. Any move towards increased digitization will require a high level of political commitment, while the establishment must have an appropriate legal, regulatory, and policy framework at the national level, across the different disciplines of the maritime, port, clearance agencies, and the transport and logistics sector.Publication Does Better Information Curb Customs Fraud?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05)This paper examines how providing better information to customs inspectors and monitoring their actions affects tax revenue and fraud detection in Madagascar. First, an instrumental variables strategy is used to show that transaction-specific, third-party valuation advice on a subset of high-risk import declarations increases fraud findings by 21.7 percentage points and tax collection by 5.2 percentage points. Second, a randomized control trial is conducted in which a subset of high-risk declarations is selected to receive detailed risk comments and another subset is explicitly tagged for ex-post monitoring. For declarations not subject to third-party valuation advice, detailed comments increase reporting of fraud by 3.1 percentage points and improve tax yield by 1 percentage point. However, valuation advice and detailed comments have a significantly smaller impact on revenue when potential tax losses and opportunities for graft are large. Monitoring induces inspectors to scan more shipments but does not result in the detection of more fraud or the collection of additional revenue. Better information thus helps curb customs fraud, but its effectiveness appears compromised by corruption.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.