ABSTRACT
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was the first organisation to put trade facilitation in the work agenda during the 1996 Singapore ministerial-level meeting, whereas investment facilitation becoming an independent topic of discussion first appeared in the Investment Facilitation Action Plan published by Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation in 2008. Different international organisations and agencies have given their own definition of trade facilitation. WTO holds that it is a simplification, modernisation and harmonisation of the import and export process. The number of members who have ratified the Trade Facilitation Agreement had thus reached 112, which exceeded the legal threshold of two-thirds of the total number of WTO members required for the entry into force of the agreement. In April 2017, China led the developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Nigeria to form the Friends of Investment Facilitation for Development to jointly promote the discussion of this topic in the WTO.
