SITPRO has just published its first Five Year Strategy, setting out its vision for trade facilitation between now and 2013 against the background of a changing world. SITPRO's Chairman, Norman Rose, said, "It is important that we take a longer term view of the horizon for trade facilitation and plan our business around it, so that we are not only reacting to proposals put forward by others but leading business and governments towards an international trading environment that maximises the benefits of trade facilitation measures and minimises the barriers to legitimate trade."
SITPRO's vision for the next five years sees:
- a clear and accepted international standards architecture in place, with an unstoppable momentum on the way to integrated paperless trading (or Straight-Through Processing) using such standards;
- improved border agency co-ordination, an effective balance between border security and trade facilitation with mutual recognition of authorised trader schemes, and measurable progress with the European Modernised Customs Code;
- trade agreements containing provisions to encourage trade facilitation to be introduced in countries around the world, supported by capacity building;
- trade facilitation for the services sector recognised as an important issue in its own right for services, as well as complementing trade in goods.
You can read the strategy at www.sitpro.org.uk/about/fiveyear.pdf and members of SITPRO's Advisory Groups will have an opportunity to discuss this vision with staff and Board members at the annual stakeholder reception in June.
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 64, Spring 2008
