Trade facilitation is a priority of the Government of Lao PDR (GoL) in the economic development agenda. The government is aiming at building a conducive business climate to attract foreign investment and enhancing integration with ASEAN and other neighboring countries.

Exports from Lao Lao PDR have increased since 2009, driven by extractive industries such as hydropower and mining. The Government, with support from development partners, is also focused on diversifying the country’s export portfolio while supporting the smooth entry of imports, including consumables and inputs needed by domestic industries. The GoL recognizes that continued progress in these areas is vital for the consistent growth of the Lao economy.

The continued improvement of customs procedures and performance is essential to hasten ASEAN integration and seamless movement of goods. Delivering efficient and predictable customs processes is important for the success of Lao businesses as they take on the challenge and opportunity of competing in the free-trade regional marketplace.

This Time Release Study (TRS) analyzes the means and standard deviations of key time intervals at each checkpoint in order to understand efficiencies and delays in the customs process, as well as provide brief recommendations on how to improve the clearance process times.

The Customs Department has set a target of reducing customs clearance time by 10% between 2017– 2020. Therefore, this report can measure the performance of the Customs Department for the customs clearance times across the country.

The main objectives of this report as details below:

  • Assessment the overall performance of customs clearance procedures and procedures of the relevant sectors at the border customs;
  • Studying the difficulties affecting cross-border trade and the clearance of goods;
  • Exploring ways to improve trade facilitation;
  • Disseminating the average release time to the public in accordance with the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement;
  • Providing timetable clearance information to ASEAN Economic Research Institute to conduct a cost analysis of trading activities in ASEAN countries.

This time-release study (TRS) is an assessment of the improvement of the tax procedures to enhance trade facilitation, which will be compared with last year's TRS results, especially the 2017 TRS study.

The Customs Department has relied on the World Tariff Organization's Guidelines on the TRS 2018 (Amended version). The TRS Committee has been assigned by the Minister of the Ministry of Finance to undertake the tasks. The TRS Committee defines the scope of the study and establishes a study plan. Since then, real-time data has been collected at target locations across the country. The data analysis is completed by using the World Trade Organization (TRS) protocol and generates a report with recommendations for improving the tax process.

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