아세안

Abstract

Intraregional trade stands to gain from the considerable efficiencies to be derived from paper-free cross-border trading—reduced document transmission costs and finance and communications charges, fewer errors, and faster transactions. To assess the challenges and opportunities of paper-free trading for small and medium enterprises in developing countries and determine its impact on such enterprises, a pilot study involving the Association of Coffee Producer Groups (AGPC) in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was done. A cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) designed to facilitate paper-free trade in coffee exports to Europe was pilot tested. By adopting paper-free trading, AGPC complied with new European Union regulations requiring it to present key trade data before shipping coffee to Europe, and thus reduced its trade documentation costs. According to the study, the document-handling efficiencies produced direct savings in time and money for AGPC of about $200 per consignment. This demonstrates to governments and small businesses the wider benefits of online information transfer and provides impetus for streamlining cross-border trade document approval.