The COVID19 Trade Facilitation Repository can be accessed through the following link and will be updated regularly to reflect newly developed guidance materials

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as pandemic on March 11th, countries have adopted a series of trade and border measures to try to contain the disease propagating across borders. For most countries, such measures have immediately led to severe impacts in economic activity, coupled with major disruptions in supply chains. In that regard, trade Facilitation has been identified as a key policy tool that can help countries mitigate some of the impact of the COVID-19, ensuring that the free flow of safe cross-border trade continues as seamlessly as possible, in particular when dealing with essential goods which are crucial for fighting the pandemic.

In response to these unprecedented sanitary and economic circumstances, international organizations, NGO’s, business associations and other representative entities redeployed resources to develop new instruments, tools and guidance material on trade facilitation measures that can address the new challenges on cross border trade that have emerged alongside COVID-19. This information can be a useful source for countries to tap into and learn from each other, sharing best practices and experiences as well as be of help when designing targeted policy responses. These resources are, nevertheless, scattered and dispersed throughout a multitude of platforms. 

Facilitated access to such information (which is changing rapidly and frequently) is crucial, in order to enhance awareness and understanding of all these different actions.

The COVID-19 Trade Facilitation Repository is envisaged as a platform consolidating the actions and initiatives on trade facilitation adopted by organizations and stakeholders. It purports to ensure access to these resources is user-friendly, easily accessible, searchable and unifying- in one single database. As such, it contains a useful listing of all such initiatives broken down by organization, type of measure, and subject matter. 

This repository is a joint initiative by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Commonwealth Small States Office in Geneva, World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Customs Organization (WCO), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and the International Trade Centre (ITC). As the situation evolves and further actions are taken, the platform will be expanded to include other key actors working with trade facilitation.