TTF Newsletter: Transport and Trade Facilitation Action Program (TTF-AP) for the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)
The TTF newsletter highlights the ADB’s Transport and Trade Facilitation Activities in Southeast Asia.
Countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion are working to make the movement of goods and services across borders faster, easier, cheaper, more compliant, and more inclusive.
Over the past decade, the Greater Mekong Subregion’s (GMS) road network has expanded by almost 200,000 kilometers, and overland road freight has almost doubled. Yet despite these advances, remaining barriers to trade and transport continue to inhibit the subregion’s full economic potential and the cost of cross-border land transport remains high.
With much of the hard infrastructure in place, there has been a greater focus in recent years on the rules, regulations, agreements, and other “software” to make the movement of goods and services across borders in the GMS faster, easier, cheaper, more compliant, and more inclusive.
The GMS Economic Cooperation Program Strategic Framework 2030 (GMS-2030) focus on trade facilitation will modernize customs and establish sanitary and phytosanitary regulations. It will also strengthen links to the private sector. GMS-2030 will support the development of e-commerce platforms in the subregion. By facilitating investment, the strategy will ease or eliminate investment flow constraints and create an integrated investment market. GMS-2030 was endorsed and adopted at the 7th GMS Summit of Leaders in September 2021. It aims to provide a new setting for the development of this subregion for the next decade.
The GMS Transport and Trade Facilitation Action Program is working to overcome existing barriers in order to link the subregion to the ASEAN Economic Community’s single market and production base, as well as other regional cooperation initiatives.
The program is helping to expand transport and traffic rights along the GMS Cross Border Transport Facilitation Agreement (CBTA). route network; simplify and modernize customs procedures and border management; and strengthen the capacity of sanitary and phytosanitary agencies in the subregion.
To facilitate progressive implementation of the CBTA, the GMS Transport Ministers as members of the CBTA Joint Committee have agreed to an “Early Harvest” memorandum of understanding to allow the issuance and mutual recognition of GMS Road Transport Permits along the CBTA Protocol 1 route network and the border crossing points along these routes starting August 2018.
Related
• ‘Early Harvest’ Implementation of the Cross-Border Transport Facilitation Agreement
• Joint Committee for the CBTA
• Statement of the Seventh Meeting of the Joint Committee for the CBTA (13 March 2019)
Focal Persons at the Asian Development Bank
Asadullah Sumbal
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit Southeast Asia Department
Dorothea Lazaro
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Central and West Asia Department
Mohammad Nazrul Islam
Transport Sector Office
Sectors Group
Other Concerned Staff & Consultants
Antonio Ressano
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department
Lucia Martin Casanueva
Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit
Southeast Asia Department/GMS Secretariat
Send inquiries to GMS Secretariat.
The TTF newsletter highlights the ADB’s Transport and Trade Facilitation Activities in Southeast Asia.
Timely availability of information, data, and indicators at the country and project levels allows for the measurement of progress – the achievement of policy objectives, as well as impacts and outcomes of target-driven projects.
The Greater Mekong Subregion Transport and Trade Facilitation Action Program (TTF-AP) is an integrated program of advisory support and capacity building focused on enhancing cross-border transport and trade in the subregion.
YANGON, MYANMAR (27 July 2015) – The Asian Development Bank is supporting the Myanmar Customs Department in developing its Authorized Economic Operators scheme, a new system that will simplify and expedite the release of imported and exported goods.
KUNMING, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (11 June 2015) – Government ministers and senior officials attending the Greater Mekong Subregion Seventh Economic Corridors Forum today agreed on measures to promote the development of economic corridors, facilitate cross-border transport and trade, and enhance cooperation and private sector participation.
KUNMING, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (10 June 2015) – Ministers and senior officials from the six Greater Mekong Subregion countries and the Vice-President of the Asian Development Bank will convene tomorrow at the 7th GMS Economic Corridors Forum to discuss how to further develop economic corridors, facilitate cross-border transport and trade, and enhance cooperation and private sector participation – including the development of Special Economic Zones.
Better cross-border transportation and electricity links are central pillars of both the Greater Mekong Subregion program and Asian Development Bank's work in support of Cambodia's development.
A Greater Mekong Subregion project helps builds a transmission line from Viet Nam to Cambodia to provide a steady supply of electricity to communities and industries in the southern part of the country.
Heng Pich Chhay used to deliver fertilizer along a bumpy, muddy road in Kampot province to rice farms in his area. Today, he can reach every corner of Cambodia on the much-improved national road network. And his company has become one of the country’s biggest fertilizer distributors. Photo: ADB/Pring Samrang.
In Cambodia's Kampot province, local businesses thrive with the development of the Greater Mekong Subregion's Southern Coastal Corridor.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (3 October 2014) – The Asian Development Bank and Government of Japan are providing technical assistance to help Greater Mekong Subregion member countries tackle weaknesses in sanitary and phytosanitary procedures, which are undermining cross border trade flows.