Itinerary_Solutions

=From Barriers to solutions= Document and data requirements are considered to a key impediment to trade. The handling and the transmission of the documents and data is costly and time consuming for traders, trade intermediaries, such as freight forwarders and customs brokers, and government authorities. Issues related to documentary requirements are maningfold.Traders face varying documentary requirements, different languages and alphabets, and document layouts. As automated processing and paperless procedures are not yet used by all government authorities traders also have to prepare paper and digital version, each of them adopted to the technical specifications of the IT systems. When inputting data into electronic systems, re-keying errors are common causes of clearance delays. Data is used and reused by different parities and eventually recorded and referenced several times. Research has shown that 50% of Customs Declarations have major transactional errors. Often also traders have to submitted the same information to different agencies leading to a duplication of efforts. It is also comment that original documents requested by authorities, such as customs, or by commercial parties, such as banks, do not arrive in time and lead to delays in the processing. The World Bank Doing Business Study, for example, uses the number of documents requested as an indicator for a barrier to trader in a given country. A typical cross-border transaction, a practioner is recorded saying in a US journal, involves filling 35 documents and interfering with 25 parties (source) and UNCTAD figures from 2003?). = Opportunities for simplifying the document and data flow = Opportunities for the simplification of document and data flows can result from the reduction of data and document requirements through administrative simplification (an example is customs transit requirements than can be reduced through the use of a bilateral transit system), a more efficient processing and exchange of data and documents between private parties and government authorities through the use of information technology for computer supported processing, and the harmonization and standardization of documents thereof.

In order to identify these opportunities, it is important to first understand the whole documentary process, from the origin of the requirements to all manifestations at the traders end, to identify who and which procedures and businesses are involved. Business Process Analysis is an important aspect of efforts to reduce documentary and data requirements.

Next step: The answer to this complex area with time critical data and information requirements, leads us to a process analysis method. BPA provides the basis for simplification harmonization standardization of data, documents, and requirements