A simple, transparent, but reliable methodology for measuring and comparing the regulatory costs of international trade.
That, in a nutshell, is the objective of a project that SITPRO believes will provide an essential extra dimension to trade facilitation.
By collecting details of the regulatory costs incurred by companies across a wide range of industry sectors and around the globe, it will be possible to develop a series of benchmarks - indicative costs for specific activities - against which the companies providing the data will be able to measure the effectiveness of their own cost controls. It is this exchange of data for benchmarks on an on-going, regular basis that SITPRO sees as the optimum means of utilising the ITReCS methodology to the benefit of global trade.
Governments, too, have a vested interest in ensuring that the burdens they impose on business are no more onerous than those of their neighbours - a particularly important consideration for countries competing for inward investment. ITReCS will provide a tool for making those vital cost comparisons on a strictly impartial and objective basis.
There have been previous attempts to determine the overall burden of regulatory costs as a percentage of the value of goods traded. However, there is no methodology in the public domain that enables companies to calculate their own actual costs of compliance and then to compare them with benchmarks determined on a wholly consistent basis.
SITPRO believes it has such a methodology and, with continued international support, ITReCS should become a valuable tool for international traders.
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 43, February/March 2003
