During the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) quadrennial conference in Bridgetown, Barbados world leaders reiterated the importance of improving trade in accelerating the post-Covid-19 economic recovery. The conference, UNCTAD 15, which the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, described as the “Olympics of trade, development, investment, policy and technology discussions,” took place from October 3 to 7. Guterres used the platform to rally world leaders, among other things, towards embracing vaccine equity and greater solidarity to tackle trade protectionism, debt distress, the climate crisis as well as other pressing global challenges. His rallying call came at a time, back in Rwanda, UNCTAD has worked with the government and other partners including TradeMark East Africa and the International Trade Centre (ITC), among others, to implement the Rwanda Trade Portal (RTP). The establishment of the portal was part of efforts to fulfil the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement’s Article 1, which requires Member States to publish their trade procedures online, displaying them step-by-step, with contact information on enquiry points, fees and access to forms. On one hand, the Portal provides traders with transparent information on trade procedures and on the other hand, it is a tool for the government to measure the impact of the trade facilitation reforms supported by the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC). “Rwanda Trade Portal provides traders with transparent information on export, import and transit procedures and is a very good tool for the Government to identify administrative bottlenecks and to measure the impact of the trade facilitation reforms through the National Trade Facilitation Committee,” noted the Minister of Trade and Industry, Beata Habyarimana, on the importance of RTP. “Since the launch of the Rwanda Trade Portal in March 2018, the implementation team has covered close to 30 key commodities resulting in the publication of around 200 procedures with more than 200 laws and regulations, up to 700 forms and requirements and close to 150 civil servants with their contact details,” she added. As a result, according to official data, 28 required documents were removed, 25 steps have been eliminated and administrative burden cost went down by around $160. This is in addition to several regulatory agencies adopting automation of various licenses, permits and certificates, by allowing traders not only to submit applications online but also to obtain authorisation documents online as a measure to limit the spread of Covid-19. “We thank Trademark East Africa, UNCTAD and ITC for their support. Rwanda is committed to addressing issues affecting trade facilitation and is keen to partner with the rest of the world to implementing trade facilitation measures as we maintain, build and rebuild productive capacities aimed at enabling economic recovery from the Covid-19 effects while thriving to achieve Rwanda’s objectives as set under our National Strategy for Transformation as well as the vision 2050,” the Minister added. How the Trade Portal works The Trade Portal provides step-by-step guides to imports, exports and transit formalities from preliminary registrations (licenses, permits and certificates) to customs clearance. For each procedure, the platform shows all the steps the trader will go through. The Portal has been used as the main platform to disseminate information related to cross-border trade during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also contains an AfCFTA dedicated menu, a trade repository page and a variety of customs services—advance ruling, duty remission scheme, prohibited and restricted goods, exemption of motor vehicles for Rwandan returnees. The Portal also allows visitors to live chat with the enquiry point during working hours or to leave an offline message when the Enquiry Point is not connected. As of September 1, this year, 30 procedures had been simplified by either reducing the number of steps, the number of requirements or by allowing to accomplish steps online or per email. It has already helped reduce the cost of administration — the cost incurred by a trader in meeting legal obligations from obtaining various licenses, permits and certificates; to clearing their consignments for export, import or transit — by Rwf163,602.
