Regional Trade Liberalization and Customs

AECOM International Development and its consortium members are implementing the USAID-funded Regional Trade Liberalization and Customs (RTLC) Project in Central Asia. This 4-year initiative aims to foster economic growth and improve the competitiveness of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan by improving the conditions for international and cross-border trade and transit. The project is assisting the three countries in achieving improvements in the transparency, clarity, predictability, and certainty of the trading environment, thus allowing importers, exporters, and producers to trade more effectively and efficiently with a minimum of government intrusion.

RTLC aims to help host governments and the private sector in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan capitalize on the many opportunities currently available for broader participation in global production and trade networks. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are in the final stages of negotiating accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and continue active work to undertake the legal and regulatory reforms necessary for full compliance. As a WTO member since 1998, Kyrgyzstan faces the ongoing need to fulfill its post-accession commitments, achieve full implementation, and build broader awareness and understanding of related issues among the public and the private sectors. All three countries stand to reap substantial gains from increases in the levels of trade through diversification of exports, reductions in trade barriers, and improvements in trade and transit links. These steps will not only foster regional economic growth, but also enable the countries to take greater advantage of high-potential trade complementarities with such countries as Turkey and China, as well as other countries of east and south Asia.

RTLC implements its activities under two closely related components: Trade Liberalization and Trade Facilitation and Integration. In Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, AECOM International Development experts provide technical assistance and training to facilitate WTO accession, and in Kyrgyzstan they support work enforcing post-accession compliance. Across the region, RTLC supports and coordinates efforts to reduce trade barriers relating to transport, transit, border crossing, and customs clearance. The project also works to expand regional cooperation for data collection and sharing, including increasing the access of SMEs to market information within and beyond the region. Across all activities, RTLC emphasizes the importance of regional cooperation and multilateral trade liberalization within the WTO context in order to allow the countries to reap the biggest gains from rationalization of trade-related policies.

Consortium partners on this contract include Banyan Global, Economic Integration Forum, Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia, and Metametrics. RTLC carries out its activities from four permanent offices in Astana, Almaty, Bishkek, and Dushanbe.