ABSTRACT
The trade facilitation agreement provides legal rules intended to make more efficient the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit. Trade facilitation means the reduction of both the cost and time necessary for goods to move across national borders. Naturally, reducing tariffs might not increase International Trade in the desired levels if traversing the customs areas is a burdensome, red-tape filled and time consuming task for exporters. In any event, and needless to say, the expenses coming from a delayed importing process may vanish any gains obtained from the reduction of tariffs or, more generally, from International Trade and, consequently, discourage many companies from conquering foreign markets. The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), in turn, provides duty-free access to the United States (US) market for substantially all products exported from 38 sub-Saharan countries. In 2013, about 91 percent of US imports from AGOA eligible countries entered the United States duty-free.
