Four+Pillars

There are a number of ways to look at trade facilitation. One of these is the concept of the four pillars. They are fundamental principles for trade facilitation and relate to transparency, harmonisation, siplification, standardisation and harmonisation. To achieve trade facilitation in the best possible way, full cooperation is necessary on these principles between government authorities and the business community, as well as between the different parties that are involved in the international supply chain.
 * Four pillars of TF**

Transparency and openness is about quickly disseminating information and giving to traders a fair chance to adapt to legislation. It is also a pre-requisite for all sorts of consultations between government authorities and traders’ organisations. To harmonise applicable laws, rules and procedures will make it less cumbersome to comply with legislation and will also make for a more predictable situation for trade. Harmonisation will reduce redundancy and misunderstanding when giving information to authorities. In the world of electronic business this is a prerequisite for building electronic documents. Standardisation builds on to harmonisation and give serious facilitation as some standards are applied worldwide. Important examples are the UN Layout Key for paper use or the UN/CEFACT business messages directories (EDIFACT and XML) for electronic communication. It can also involve standardisation and improvement of physical infrastructure and facilities. Simplification is a principle that should be a guiding star for all trade facilitation measures. It can be very simple measures like not asking for redundant information on forms, asking companies to store information (rather than handing in 100 percent of all invoices the companies store them and only the ones being controlled are given to customs), sharing of border posts and so on. When doing business process modelling aiming at automation it is important to look for simplifications in order to streamline the processes and automate the simplest possible process.

Figure 1. The Four pillars of Trade Facilitation. (Source: National Board of Trade, Sweden.)