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INTERNATIONAL

instrument of trade facilitation: the information is pro-
vided only once to a single agency. Even though it may
sound simple, it's a very a complicated instrument, for
it is very difficult to coordinate the work of all agencies
regulating foreign trade. Thus, the idea underpinning the
facilitated movement of goods is the facilitated move-
ment of the information about goods, since goods can-
not move faster than the information about them, such
as customs documents or those going to other inspection
agencies. In other words, trade facilitation is about mak-
ing information about the goods -- documents, certifi-
cates, licenses, customs declarations -- move faster so that
the goods move faster. And the benefit is saving time and
reducing the cost of bureaucratic procedures. "This is the idea of the Single

Q: You also work on the United Nations Special Pro- Window, which is the most developed
gramme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA).
instrument of trade facilitation: the
What is the purpose of this program?
This program supports the Central Asian economies information is provided only once to a
in developing "sub-regional" cooperation, as we call it.
The SPECA participating countries are Afghanistan, Az- single agency."
erbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmeni-
stan and Uzbekistan. It is the only Central Asian coopera- of how the SPECA program works, in order to make it
tion program involving only the land-locked economies more country driven.
of the Central Asia, allowing them to cooperate among
themselves, with the UN providing the platform. The Q: I understand that you have compiled a glossary of
program consists of six different areas covered by six trade facilitation terms, is that right?
working groups. It is a difficult program because some- Yes, we have developed an English-Russian trade facilita-
times we have to deal with prejudices against regional tion glossary, which is kind of a bilingual dictionary of
cooperation in the countries, and there are those who be- trade facilitation terms. The impetus for starting work on
lieve that there is no political will nor sufficient resources it came during a seminar in Chisinau on trade facilita-
to support this program. This does not diminish the im- tion for those former Soviet republics that were the first
portance of such a program for the economies of Central to join the WTO. There, experts from Moldova pointed
Asia. They need it. And this is the challenge of the United out that there were four different ways of translating
Nations: to work exactly where something is not easy to "trade facilitation" into Russian and that could be very
do and is not done by others. confusing. So, they asked us to prepare an authoritative
Last year the host of the program's key events was tool on the translation of trade facilitation terms that
Tajikistan, and Tajikistan selected as the theme of the could help them. After that, we decided to prepare an
annual economic forum "Innovation for Achieving the English-Russian glossary covering a wide range of trade
SDGs in the SPECA Region' It was an interesting forum, facilitation terms.
and one of the outcomes was the idea of developing a re- We are now pursuing the idea of producing a multilingual
gional strategy for innovation to help achieve sustainable dictionary, for it has been a long-term objective to have
development, which would be based on the documents such a tool in the six official United Nations languages.
that were produced for this forum.
I would like to mention certain benefits of trade facili-
Q: Who is chairing the program this year? tation. The cost of paperwork in international trade is
This year Kazakhstan is chairing the program, and they estimated to range from 3.5% to 7% of the value of the
will organize the annual meeting of the governing coun- goods traded (even 10% to 15% if there are typing errors).
cil and the economic forum on 20-21 September 2018, Introducing trade facilitation measures can reduce this
in Almaty. Twenty years ago the Central Asian coun- considerably. In the global economy, each 1% reduction
tries gathered in Tashkent to establish the program and of such costs would be equal to US$ 43 billion.
issued its founding document, the so called Tashkent
Declaration. Kazakhstan is working of the definition of Taking leave of Mr Mario Apostolov, we wish him suc-
the topic and an agenda now. This year, it was decided cess in his endavours.
that for the twentieth anniversary there will be a review EKATERINA PINCHEVSKAYA

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMAT - DIVA 11