Border Procedures & Trade Facilitation
View ResourceIntegrating SMEs in Authorized Economic Operator Certification: Improving SME Participation in APEC Secure Trade
This report focuses on Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) Certification and Mutual Recognition Agreements in APEC economies, looking at what SMEs must undertake to obtain AEO certifications or benefit from such MRAs, along with how to make existing systems easier to navigate and implement.
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Authorized Economic Operator
This training course is designed for MSMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining what it means to be an Authorized Economic Operator, how the certification process works, and other related aspects. Course completion includes a certificate of participation, contingent on the final score.
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ICC Policy Statement on the Misuse of Customs Valuation Databases
This policy statement examines the use of customs valuation databases for import declarations, flagging the problems that may arise from this practice, including for SMEs and others engaged in trade.
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Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide
This publication by UNECE is designed as a guide for SMEs as they navigate existing trade facilitation measures, providing them advice on what steps small businesses can take to adapt their internal and external processes.
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Making the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Work for SMEs
This publication by UNESCAP examines the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement to show which provisions are the most relevant for SMEs looking to trade, along with indicating what policy interventions and programs exist for putting these provisions into practice effectively.
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MSME Provisions in Trade Agreements
This database extracts all the SME provisions from RTAs that include member states of the Organization of American States and lists them by agreement.
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Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organization: Lessons for the Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises Joint Statement Initiative
This publication, prepared under the TAF2+ WTO Umbrella Grant on New Issues, reviews how SME and MSME-related issues have been treated across the WTO agreements and regional trade agreements. It considers what trends have emerged and what can be learned.
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Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF)
Improve developing countries' food safety and animal and plant health capacity, also known as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) capacity, in support of sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction and food security. The site features information on current and past projects, project funding opportunities, practical resources, and latest news. The STDF is a partnership founded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It also involves various other organizations, development partners, and developing-country experts.
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Rules of Origin Facilitator
To support SMEs and MSMEs as they navigate the various interlocking rules of origin (ROOs) in place across export markets, with users able to determine which ROOs are in place depending on HS code or the name of the product.
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ePing alert
To provide regular updates on new measures related to food safety, plant and animal health, labelling, standards, searchable by product and export market. It also includes information on enquiry points, notification authorities, and more.
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Global Trade Helpdesk
This site provides market intelligence for MSMEs looking to trade abroad, both for importing and for exporting. It includes a host of integrated tools, tutorials, product finders by Harmonized System (HS) codes, data sources, and much more.
View GuideTrade Information Portals and MSMEs
Trade Information Portals and MSMEs International trade requires businesses to navigate a complex web of regulatory requirements, customs procedures, and tax structures. For many businesses, simply finding reliable and complete information about these requirements is itself a major barrier to engaging in trade. Trade Information Portals (TIPs) are a key policy instrument designed to address this problem directly. Also referred to as National Trade Portals (NTPs) or National Trade Repositories (NTRs), TIPs are designed to enhance regulatory transparency and reduce the time, cost, and uncertainty traders face when seeking to comply with a country’s trade regulations. Under Article 1 of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), WTO Members are required to publish import, export, and transit procedures online, and TIPs are the primary vehicle through which many countries meet this obligation. Why MSMEs and TIPs? A central reason for the well-known gap in relative trade participation between large and smaller firms is the difficulty in accessing and understanding regulatory requirements. The costs of regulatory uncertainty fall disproportionately on smaller operators. To counter this, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development cites effective TIPs as a powerful policy instrument for promoting trade facilitation, inclusive trade, and supply chain resilience across both developed and developing countries. When trade regulations are transparent and accessible, MSMEs are better placed to plan, budget, and execute cross-border transactions and to take advantage of preferential trade agreements and export opportunities they might otherwise never know exist. What Makes a TIP Effective? According to UNESCAP, effective TIPs share several key characteristics: They must be easy to navigate, allowing a user to find information quickly without requiring specialist knowledge. Content must be relevant, written in plain language, be available in multiple languages, have low bandwidth requirements and mobile-friendly designs. Information must be accurate, consistent with official sources, complete across all relevant regulatory agencies, and updated in a timely manner when rules change. These are all important features given the digital constraints many MSME operators face, yet the quality of TIPs varies widely, and many existing portals fall short of what is needed. Critically, users must trust the portal. In Tajikistan, for example, portal content is formally signed off by customs officials, building confidence among traders that the information is authoritative. UNESCAP finds that the best-performing TIPs also include a feedback mechanism, allowing traders to report errors, ask questions, and flag outdated content, creating a continuous improvement loop between the portal and its users. Where can policymakers access more resources? The UN ESCAP and ITD Guide to Enhancing Trade Information Portals (2021) is the primary technical reference for TIP assessment and improvement. It includes the Maturity Roadmap Model, nine critical success components, a complete recommended content checklist, performance indicators, and a country TIP assessment template. Available at: https://www.unescap.org/kp/2021/guide-enhancing-trade-information-portals The ESCAP-ITD Free Online Course on Enhancing Trade Information Portals provides a full framework and guidelines for assessing an existing TIP and generating improvement recommendations, and is recommended for trade facilitation officials and TIP operators. Available at: https://www.unescap.org/training/etip The UN/CEFACT Guidelines for Establishing a Trade Information Portal (2020) provide internationally agreed standards for TIP content and structure, and serve as the baseline content checklist referenced throughout the ESCAP-ITD framework. Available here: Rec38-ECE-TRADE-465E.pdf The World Bank’s Developing a Trade Information Portal (2012) provides foundational guidance on TIP development including recommended service checklists and governance principles. Available here: World Bank Document The UNCTAD article “Making Trade Information Portals More Relevant and Sustainable” (2021) by Yann Duval (ESCAP) provides a concise overview of key principles for effective and MSME-accessible TIPs. Available at: https://unctad.org/news/making-trade-information-portals-more-relevant-and-sustainable Highlighted national and regional trade information portals The East African Community (EAC) Trade Helpdesk (tradehelpdesk.eac.int) links national TIPs from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, and is an example of regional integration of national trade information systems. For each step of the process, the portal tells the user where to go, who to see, what documents to bring, what forms to fill, and what costs to pay, EAC). The European Union Access2Markets Database (trade.ec.europa.eu/access-to-markets), launched in 2020, aggregates both import and export information, offering product-specific tariff and regulatory information, rules of origin guidance, trade statistics, and information on trade barriers across EU trading partners, all searchable by product and country. It is frequently used as a benchmarking reference in TIP assessment exercises such as in the joint UNESCAP-ITD report. The Rwanda Trade Information Portal (rwandatrade.rw), managed by the Rwanda Revenue Authority under the National Trade Facilitation Committee, is a model example from Africa of a government-led TIP developed with international technical assistance from UNCTAD and ITC to meet WTO TFA obligations (launched in March 2018, it provides comprehensive, single-point access to user-centric information needed to trade in and out of Rwanda, including step-by-step guides to imports, exports, and transit). [Video guide] Tajikistan’s Trade Portal (tajtrade.tj) is consistently cited as one of the most effective and user-friendly TIPs globally and is a key benchmarking reference in the UNSCAP-ITD assessment framework [Video guide]
