NEW DELHI: India’s National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP), which aims to reduce cargo release time for exports and imports as part of measures intended to boost trade, has been described by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) as a ‘best practice’ that other nations can adopt.
The WCO on Friday emphasised the fact that as many as 51 of the 76 activities mentioned in the NTFAP (released by the Centre on Thursday) “go beyond” the implementation requirements of the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).
The NTFAP, which is to be implemented between 2017 and 2020, is part of India’s efforts to improve its ease of doing business ranking in the World Bank’s annual report. While India’s overall rank in the report is 130, it ranks 144 out of 190 nations in the report’s ‘Trading Across Borders’ category.
The TFA — meant to ease Customs norms for faster flow of goods across borders — had come into effect in February 2017.
