Trade Facilitation Support for ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint Implementation (May 2015-November 2015)
In November 2010, the Japanese government announced a new initiative called the Asia Cargo Highway as Asia’s long-term goal to create seamless flows of goods in the region by 2020. The Japanese Ministry of Financial pledged $25 million to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for regional trade facilitation. As a part of the initiative, the ADB awarded IC Net the project entitled “Trade Facilitation Support for ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint Implementation” to provide technical assistance in Cambodia.
The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is the fulcrum of the ASEAN vision of an integrated Southeast Asian community starting by 2015. The AEC Blueprint has set an agenda that seeks to establish ASEAN as a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, with equitable economic development and one that is fully integrated into the global economy. Establishing ASEAN as “a single market and production base” includes freer flow of five core elements: (i) goods; (ii) services; (iii) investments; (iv) capital; and (v) skilled labor.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is promoting AEC’s vision by enhancing transport and trade facilitation (TTF) through three subregional groupings supported by ADB: (i) the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Economic Cooperation Program, (ii) the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), and (iii) the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). Strengthening TTF to enable cheaper and faster transport across borders has been a priority in the GMS, where member countries approved a program of action for TTF at the 16th Ministerial Conference in Ha Noi in August 2010 to guide their cooperation in this area.
Giving this background, this project aims to evaluate the cargo tracking systems in Cambodia. The results of evaluation help the Cambodian government to identify possible solutions to improve cargo tracking systems. This project aims to achieve its objectives as follows:
- Conduct a cost analysis of cargo tracking system in Cambodia;
- Improve the tracking system of cross-border movement and transit cargoes in Cambodia; and
- Analyze the cross-border movements, transit transportation, and cargo tracking systems in Asia.