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Trade is widely recognized to be an engine of growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Trade facilitation measures are non-discriminatory and apply to all traders in their design; however, these measures may not necessarily impact or benefit all traders in similar ways. There is a global lack of data on how trade facilitation interventions impact traders by gender at the firm level. There is also a global vacuum of knowledge of the exact proportion of cross-border traders that are women. Few countries, if any, can easily confirm the number of women that undertake cross-border trade in their respective countries. Designing interventions that are inclusive, benefiting women as well as men, is difficult without accurate data on the gander of those who participate actively in cross-border trade. Without this knowledge and that of the exact challenges faced by both genders, it is also hard to tell how much any subset of the economy would be impacted by any intervention. This lack of data may also reinforce the bias against women in trade policy making. This note presents findings of the survey work in Samoa. Samoa is a small archipelago, and the Apia seaport serves as the international gateway for almost 100 percent of all freight imports and exports for the country. Inter-island freight transport also depends on access to Apia Port.

Foreign Trade Promotion and Regulation --- Gender --- Trade Facilitation

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Trade is widely recognized to be an engine of growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Trade facilitation measures are non-discriminatory and apply to all traders in their design; however, these measures may not necessarily impact or benefit all traders in similar ways. There is a global lack of data on how trade facilitation interventions impact traders by gender at the firm level. There is also a global vacuum of knowledge of the exact proportion of cross-border traders that are women. Few countries, if any, can easily confirm the number of women that undertake cross-border trade in their respective countries. Designing interventions that are inclusive, benefiting women as well as men, is difficult without accurate data on the gender of those who participate actively in cross-border trade. Without this knowledge and that of the exact challenges faced by both genders, it is also hard to tell how much any subset of the economy would be impacted by any intervention. This lack of data may also reinforce the bias against women in trade policy making. This note presents findings of the survey work in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands and relies on its interisland shipping services to connect the outer islands to the main ports of Port Villa and Luganville as well as to support international trade.

Foreign Trade Promotion and Regulation --- Gender --- Trade Facilitation

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Belarus is a member of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), bordering three European Union (EU) countries (Poland,Lithuania and Latvia), Ukraine and Russia. As such, the country is strategically located for international transit trade. With the aim of boosting the country's transit role, the government of Belarus is undertaking several infrastructure development projects and regulatory reforms aimed at trade facilitation. Government undertook a Two agencies at the border reform with the goal of reducing the number of agencies at the border to only two, namely Customs and the Border Police. Belarus's efforts were supported by the World Bank Group (WBG), including the World Bank's Transit Corridor Improvement Project (TCIP), which is financing the modernization of the transit Corridor-M6 Minsk-Grodno, and the Belarus Business Regulation and National Quality Infrastructure Advisory Project of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) with the aim of improving trade procedures. Border-crossing time release studies are powerful tools for analyzing trade logistics and measuring the performance of border agencies. Insights from a border-crossing study can help in designing and accelerating trade facilitation reforms. Preparing and carrying out an effective study is a challenging exercise in itself, as it involves sensitive data, and complex multi-agency and cross-country relationships. The border-crossing time release study for commercial cargo undertaken by the World Bank Group's (WBG's) Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice team in Belarus in 2015 is an example that provides important lessons that may be useful for other countries. In this context, the border crossing time release study (BCTR study) was designed by the two WBG project teams, and implemented in close cooperation with the State Customs Committee of Belarus.

Business --- Foreign Trade Promotion and Regulation --- Trade --- Trade Facilitation

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Trade is widely recognized to be an engine of growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Trade facilitation measures are non-discriminatory and apply to all traders in their design; however, these measures may not necessarily impact or benefit all traders in similar ways. There is a global lack of data on how trade facilitation interventions impact traders by gender at the firm level. There is also a global vacuum of knowledge of the exact proportion of cross-border traders that are women. Few countries, if any, can easily confirm the number of women that undertake cross-border trade in their respective countries. This note presents findings of the survey work in Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste is a small island country within the Malay Archi-pelago. It includes the enclave of Oecussi-Ambeno, situated on the Western (Indonesian) part of the island and the islands of Atauro and Jaco. There are ports on Oecusse and Atauro Island that provide domestic ferry traffic, and Dili Port operates as the only international port for Timor-Leste. Indonesia is Timor-Leste's biggest trading partner.

Foreign Trade Promotion and Regulation --- Gender --- Trade Facilitation

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What is the structure of the Most-Favored Nation (MFN) tariff of Russia? How has it been changing over time? What are the sectors in which tariffs are high or low? How diverse is the tariff structure of Russia? Surprisingly, these questions have not been answered to date due to a lack of data that would allow calculation of the ad valorem equivalents of the specific Russian tariffs. The authors have obtained a new data set that they describe in this book. As a result of these new data, the authors are able to calculate the ad valorem equivalents of the specific tariffs. This allows them to provide the first detailed and accurate assessment of the tariff structure of Russia. The authors are able to assess, for the years 2001-2003, the actual number of tariff lines in which specific tariffs apply, what are the tariff lines with the highest tariffs, and investigate many other properties of the Russian tariff structure for the first time. This book is arranged as follows: In section two the authors discuss the key results. The authors calculate average tariffs and standard deviations based on an unweighted basis and also an import trade weighted basis. In section three the authors discuss the data set. The authors discuss methodology in section IV. The key results are presented in tables 1-8. The authors have a one-page note on technical details in the calculations following the tables. In Appendix A the authors present tables with more detailed results, namely of 2-digit industry calculations and the tariff lines with tariff rates above 50 percent. In appendix B, the authors provide a second set of parallel tables called Estimated collected tariff rates. These tables reflect the fact that imports from CIS countries enter tariff free with some notable exceptions, so the collected tariff rate is lower than the MFN rate. As the authors discuss the results, they evaluate the trends in the tariff structure based on the view, elaborated by Tarr (2002), that low and uniform tariffs are preferable to high and diverse tariffs. This paper is methodological and descriptive, so the reader interested in a discussion of tariff policy should consult Tarr (2002).

Finance --- Foreign Trade Promotion and Regulation --- Rules of Origin --- Sugar --- Trade --- Trade Policy