The Ministry of Trade and Investment represented by the Ministry of Foreign Trade Agency in cooperation with the World Trade Organization completed "Trade Facilitation Agreement" workshop on 19 Muharram 1438 H, corresponding to October 20, 2016, aimed at workers in the fields of international trade in the public and private sectors. This workshop was organized out of the keenness of the Ministry of trade and investment on developing of its cadres in the government and private sectors involved in international commerce and increase their knowledge in this area. The workshop also aims to train them in how to facilitate the flow of goods between member states of the World Trade Organization, as well as increased trade exchange with the outside world, and use all the possibilities necessary for the growth in line with the Saudi Vision 2030.
The Undersecretary of the Foreign Trade Agency in the Ministry of Trade and Investment Mr. Ahmed Hagbani pointed out that the workshop aims to introduce the trade facilitation within the framework of the World Trade Organization. Moreover, the facilitation's impact on increasing exports, reduce their costs and facilitate access to the Member States of the Organization markets. Mr. Al- Hagbani added that the introducing trade facilitation is one of the most important trading system agreements multilaterally in the WTO. The most important outcomes of the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference held in Bali, Indonesia, at the end of 2013, stated that this is the first convention added to the agreements of the multilateral trading system, after 18 years since the establishment of the World Trade Organization. This agreement has the approval of all Member States and important event on the international level, for it is considered a powerful tool to break the deadlock negotiating position in Doha negotiations, since 2001. For this agreement took the multilateral trading system from a critical and long-term dead end.
Mr. Al-Hagbani explained that the agreement aims to simplify and reduce paperwork procedures that import and export relevant government bodies authorities required, compatibility between the procedures and international standards without affecting the level of government controls over trade. Also, reduce the barriers faced by commercial traffic to facilitate cross-border trade between the countries. According to the expectations of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the agreement can reduce global trade costs by15%, and in the case of this agreement entry into force global trade costs will be reduced even more and will have positive impact on the trade for the development and integration of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the global value. (GVC)