The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa have launched the Pilot System of COMESA Virtual Trade Facilitation System (CVTFS) on the Djibouti-Addis Ababa -Khartoum and Juba Corridors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 22 September ,2012.
The project is aimed at coordinating trade activities in terms of information exchange, cargo tracking and monitoring movements of goods in order to insure trade efficiency and ultimately promote competitiveness and consolidate regional integration.
Speaking during the official launch of the CVTFS, State Minister of Finance and Economic Development of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia His Excellency Mr Ahmed Shide Mohamed, said the government of Ethiopia pays attention to the growth and transformation plan to infrastructure development as it is very crucial for trade facilitation as it helps reduce the cost of doing business.
Mr Shide Mohamed said weak physical and institutional infrastructure is the key obstacle to increased intra-african trade and investment attraction. “The government of Ethiopia being aware that there is strong link between infrastructure development, economic growth, and poverty reduction, has been making huge efforts to enhance its infrastructure and is making a relentless effort towards the development of road, ICT and railway networks, Mohamed said. He added; “ The government is also a lot of efforts towards trade facilitation such that almost all non-trade barriers are eliminated along all major routes have been lifted and a number of customs documentation to be completed has been minimized to the level of regional standards.
He said that the CVTFS will support related stakeholders in the countries to be more efficiency by introducing a coordinated programme of action featuring mutual cooperation and key investments in regional transport infrastructure and trade facilitation.
And speaking earlier COMESA Secretary-General Sindiso Ngwenya said given the fact that the region does not have legacy investments which have to be written off , the region can leap frog technologically by adopting the COMESA CVTS which when fully implemented will substantially reduce transaction costs( that the cost of doing business) and make the individual economies competitive.
Mr. Ngwenya said through the implementation of the COMESA CVTFS system the region shall have a real time metric for measuring the efficiency of transit and come up with our home grown indicators of the cost of doing business.
“Most fundamentally , the CVTS will in one fell swoop eliminate the categorization of COMESA Member States into coastal and land locked countries as it provides real time information to Government agencies , particularly Customs and transport operators”, Ngwenya said.
Mr Ngwenya said the first phase of the programme will benefit Government agencies because the implementation of the CVTS will bring about transparency and good governance in the monitoring and management of transit trade and means of transport in that the CVTS provides visibility of both the cargo and truck in real time.
He added;” the CVTS which has a facility for geofencing will also enable Member States to implement the provisions of paragraph 5 article 11 of the Protocol on Transit Trade and Transit Facilities on the designation and notification of transit routes including Customs Offices along the routes.”
The secretary-General further said the second phase will see the roll out of the functionalities which are under development like basic Fleet Management , which will include but not limited to speeding, dangerous driving , designation by truck owners and operators of lay overs for drivers, Over load Control, installation of navigation systems to enhance road safety, control of fuel consumption ,International Standard Organization(ISO) Certification standard for night driving and a system that can report to the truck operators/ owners of GSM jamming.
He paid gratitude to the European Union whose generous provision of funding has enabled the COMESA Secretariat Team working on the project to deliver what will undoubtedly turn out to be the most important innovation since the establishment of COMESA.