Despite technological advancements in modern global trade practices, one key impediment to trade growth that remains is the lagging capability of trading partners to electronically share documentation in advance of a shipment’s arrival at its destination point. While modern automation processes have helped, given that numerous documents are required to be filed with multiple government agencies in any given trade transaction, there remains a large space for efficiency to be gained.
In fact, in 2013 the World Economic Forum cited that “If all countries improve border administration and transport and communication infrastructure to even half of global best practice, it could mean a $1 Trillion USD increase in global exports”.
The United States and other nations around the world are working to advance their ‘Single Window’ trade systems which would facilitate the efficient automated transfer of all trade documents to all relevant stakeholders. But given the stakes, these systems have been slow to develop. Around the world, Single Window implementation merits the necessary investment of time and money.
A 9 minute video clip illustrating the issue can be viewed on YouTube.
