The recently concluded Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) provides an ideal opportunity to narrow the scope of AFT activities to heed the call for “managing for Development results” (MfDR). The paper review the evidence on trade costs by different country groupings distinguishing between LDCs and Landlocked LDCS (LLDCs) including new estimates of time in transit for international parcel data that is measured relatively accurately. This review is accompanied by new estimates that provide support for allocating a greater share of AFT funds towards LDCs and particularly towards Landlocked LDCs (LLDCs), both groups showing higher trade costs than comparators and less progress in reducing trade costs since 1995. On average, time in customs for imports and exports are also significantly higher for both groups than for their respective comparators. LDCs and LLDCs have systematically lower values for the components in the new OECD Trade Facilitation Indicator (TFI). New estimates suggest that a successful implementation of the TFA, defined as moving halfway towards the frontier value of the TFI for the respective country grouping could reduce trade costs for imports of LDCs by 2.4% and by 4.5% for LLDCs. Estimates of time in transit for parcels sent by post are also higher for LDCs than for other developing countries. Even though there is more to trade costs than customs management, monitoring implementation of the TFA would be part of the Istanbul Program of Action and a stepping stone towards the concrete trade performance targets that have lacked in AFT activities so far.
