Examples of ICT applications

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is now widely used by the trading and transport community to support global supply and logistics chain management. Public administrations also increasingly use ICT to automate processing and to communicate with their clients. The emergence of web services has made new applications of ICT possible. Information can be submitted electronically, and services can become location and time independent. Formally paper-based systems are now transformed into electronic systems supported by automated information exchange and processing.

Benefits

ICT applications can lead to the following trade facilitation benefits:

• faster and more reliable processing, in particular of large amounts of information,
• uniform application of procedures,
• better exchange of information across organizational boundaries,
• availability of electronic information that can be used and re-used for various tasks, and
• 24/24h and 7/7 days availability of services.

Examples of application of ICT for trade facilitation purposes

ICT can be applied in several ways for trade facilitation implementation:

• Large ICT systems can automate complex government processes and procedures, such as systems for Customs automation, risk management, Single Windows, and also shipping portals, port and airport community systems.
• ICT can be used to automate communications between private and public organizations (e.g. Customs declarations) and between public authorities from different countries and regions.
• Webservices can be used to share information, for example within port and airport community systems, or to share supporting documents for Customs declarations.

Pre-requisites

The automated processing and exchange of documents and data need to be supported by e-business solutions, that provides for standards and tool to support automated information processing and data exchange. Whilst ICT offer huge potentials, real benefits in form of simplified and integrated processing can only be realized ICT is introduced hand in hand with re-design processes and organizational change. To given an example, a Single Window is foremost a change project and not an IT application. It rests on a fundamentally changed processes and cooperation between agencies and with the traders.