No Room for Paperwork in Future Trade, Say Logistics Officials

February 26, 2015 |Other U.S.

MIAMI -- As countries across the globe move ahead with trade facilitation and modernization initiatives, governments can’t relent in the drive to remove paperwork from all customs and regulatory filing, said several North American and European trade logistics officials at the International Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Council for International Business symposium on Feb. 23. Automation is indispensable in those initiatives, said the officials.

CBP is in the process of requiring use of the Automated Commercial Environment and is scheduled to finish the International Trade Data System, known also as the single window, by the end of 2016 (see 1502250001). Both governments and the private sector stand to make real financial gains from such transitions, said Darcy Price, director of value chains at Oracle. “As our customers replace their manual systems and their manual processes with automation, they have been able to enjoy increased control and in some cases some standardization of process,” Price said. “A lot of our customers are very, very focused on centralizing their trade and logistics data and having a single source of truth for all their global trade and logistics data.”

The U.S. and most, if not all, countries globally still allow paper for many filings, though paper simply has no role in the future of trade facilitation, said Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association Executive Director Ruth Snowden. “It doesn’t work,” said Snowden. “You don’t have the data and you don’t have security and you don’t have the opportunity to do risk-analysis.” CBP will continue to accept paper filings after the Nov. 1 U.S. deadline for electronic cargo release and entry summary filings in ACE.

The private sector, due to its grasp of innovation and cost-savings, is ideally fit to advise governments on the transitions to more modern technology in trade, said Snowden. Other industry members complained of other logistics obstacles, such as border slogs, increased customs auditing and non-tariff protections, and complicated origin certificates.