2007 will be a crucial year for trade facilitation. The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ended in renewed optimism about the prospects for concluding the WTO Doha round in 2007. We welcome this and hope it will lead to the conclusion of the trade facilitation agreement that SITPRO has worked so hard to promote. 2007 will also be a key year for the development of the paperless trading standard UNeDocs, as we work to get it formally adopted this year as an international standard. And the launch of UCP600 in the summer, which SITPRO will help to promote, will represent a big change for traders.
2007 will also present challenges for SITPRO itself. We face another review by the DTI as the Government prepares for its next three-year comprehensive spending review. You will already know that our Government grant will again be smaller than in previous years, which means doing as much trade facilitation as we can for less. When I put this to one of our stakeholders recently, the response was, "Why don't you become commercial?" That is what we shall be doing - and with Government backing. Our Business Plan for 2007-08 will be significantly different from previous years as we seek new opportunities to diversify our funding sources while maintaining sectoral independence. I am setting up an ideas box on SITPRO's website, where you can post your suggestions for new commercial directions for SITPRO to consider.
Finally, we will use 2007 to raise our profile within the UK. In this issue you will find details of our "Simpler Trading" regional programme, on which we are working with the British Chambers of Commerce. I hope to see you at one of these events.
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 59, Winter 2006/2007
