With sustained efforts, India can match OECD standards in trade facilitation

Government of India has been taking a slew of measures in recent years to improve ease of doing business, especially ease of trading across borders. Improving ease of trading across border is an essential policy measure to promote exports of a country. The ultimate objective is to move towards a simple, transparent and paper-less export and import procedures through digitization.

In this context, it is worth noting the move by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) to introduce Secure QR coded Shipping Bill that will be sent to exporters electronically after the Customs allows export.

This is also a move towards eco-friendly practice in the customs as it will obviate the need to take paper printout of the Shipping Bill. Further, it will save time for exporters as they need not visit the Customs Houses for collecting hard copies of export documents.

CBIC unveiled this initiative on June 23, 2020 as part of its recent steps to adopt paper-less customs procedures. On April 15, 2020, CBIC launched paperless documentation for imports to promote ease of customs clearance. 

From April 2018, Government of India launched eSANCHIT, which allows traders to submit all documents electronically for customs clearance, without the need to approach different agencies with hard copies.

As a result o these initiatives, India’s ranking in the World Bank’s trading across borders has improved from 133 (out of 189 economies) in 2016 to 68 (out of 190 countries) in 2020. The time taken for documentary compliance to export has fallen from 42 hours in 2016 to 12 hours in 2020, while the time for documentary compliance to import has declined from 63 hours to 20 hours during this period.

It should be remembered that India’s progress on this front has been the result of sustained efforts for more than a decade to promote digitization. India introduced an online platform, ICEGATE, to enable online customs declaration in 2008 and in the following year, the country implemented electronic data interchange system to facilitate electronic sharing of information among all agencies involved in foreign trade. India’s ratification of WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) in April 2016 provided renewed impetus to trade facilitation measures in the country.

While the progress of India is admirable, the country still has a long way to go to match the best standards in advanced countries. In the OECD high income countries, it takes hardly 2.3 hours and 3.4 hours for documentary compliance for exports and imports respectively. With sustained efforts, India can also match the performance of advanced countries in this regard.