Progress and key challenges for

connecting agricultural sector

to global market in the region

Session 3: Re-thinking Trade Facilitation Strategies for More Inclusive

Regional Integration: Focusing on SMEs and the Agricultural Sector

Somnuk Keretho, PhD UNNExT Advisory Committee

Director, Institute for IT Innovation (i-NOVA) Kasetsart University, Bangkok

sk@ku-inova.org

The 7th Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Forum

“Deepening Regional Integration through Trade Facilitation”

20-21 October 2015, Wuhan, China

Page 2 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Objectives of this presentation

To propose trade facilitation policies,

regulatory environment and specific measures

for effectively assisting agriculture firms

to better participate in the international & regional trade.

The proposal is to call for strengthening

regional cooperation and harmonization in

cross-border agriculture value-chain management

enabling by cross-border paperless trade facilitation.

Page 3 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Progress of Paperless Trade in Asia-Pacific Sub-regions and improvement opportunities

Nearly 40% of the Asia-Pacific economies are now implementing their paperless

trade, i.e. national Single Window environments, however

– Electronic Single Window Systems implementation remains at a relatively

early stage, e.g. single information submission, and inter-agency process

streamlining are still the implementation challenges.

– Implementation of Electronic application and issuance of Preferential

Certificates of Origin and Trade Licenses (and also e-Health & e-SPS

Certs) are well below the overall regional average.

– Cross-border paperless trade systems implementation remains mostly at

the pilot stage or not yet implemented at all.

Referring to

ESCAP, UNRC

TF Survey 2015

Page 4 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Key Strategies for Successful Inclusive & Sustainable Agriculture Trade

- value chain management is our challenge. -

1. Promote understanding of demand-side requirements, e.g.

– Food quality, food safety (chemical-free) & traceability are key

requirements of major importing countries.

2. Enhance production capability to produce goods that meet the

requirements of target consumers with differentiation, e.g.

– Promoting chemical-free or organic agricultural produces

3. Establish sustainable business models viable for SMEs and

smallholder farmers in the region, e.g.

– Association of smallholder farmers sharing cost & capability for

internal control, certification, packaging and trade management.

4. Adopt efficient business processes and good management in

agriculture firms, logistics sectors and government, e.g.

– With crop information and quality management, certification,

traceability, efficient logistics support, and paperless trade facilitation.

Page 5 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Smallholder farmers working together through a Cooperative sharing cost & efforts on post-harvesting, traceability, marketing and export management

Ready for truck

transportation and

exporting to Japan by ships

Traceability information,

e.g. each banana package

coming from which farm,

is available on the internet

for international consumers

to access and check.

Farmers bring

70-75%-maturity

bananas

to the coop

for selection,

traceability,

trade and

transport operations.

A Case Example

Good

Management

enabled by

ICT,

e.g. members

& crop

Information

management,

packaging

& barcode

labeling

with

traceability

features

cleaning

selection

tagging

bar-coding

da

ta-e

ntr

y

transport

Page 6 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Value Chain for Exporting Banana (Thayang Agriculture Co-op)

Production

(Chemical-free

banana)

Post Harvest, e.g.

Selection, Cleaning

& Packaging

Land Transport/

Freight Forwarding

Sea Transport

Importing

About 400 individual banana farmers/smallholders – owners of the co-op

Thayang Cooperative Petchaburi Province, Thailand

Toto Consumer

Cooperative Society Japan

WAGO Co., Ltd. Japan

Transport Company with Controlled-Temperature Container

Sea Carrier

Otento (Thailand)

Co., Ltd

Tops Supermarket,

Hotels,

Retailers,

Bakery,

Farmer Markets.

Transport Company with Controlled-Temperature Container

International Market Domestic Market

Selling

Transport

Market/

Consumers

Price guarantee and

also annual revenue sharing

through the co-op

A Case Example

Buyers/Consumers

Marketing & Trading

Page 7 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Development Opportunities for Cross-border Agriculture Value Chain with e-Trade/e-Trade Faclitation

Demand

Market

Smallholder

Farmers

Collaboration

SME

Seller

Exporter

Exporter &

Freight

Transport

Providers

SME

Buyer

Importer

Applying

Good

Management

Practices

& ICT

for improving

farm production

quality, packaging

and traceability

of the produces

Regulatory

Gov

Agencies

Importer &

Freight

Transport

Providers

across

a border

Supply Demand e-Trade e-Trade

Regulatory

Gov

Agencies

e-Trade Facilitation

Adopting

e-Marketing/

e-Trade

Management

Good

Practices

enabled

with

ICT

Adopting

e-Marketing/e-Trade

Management

Developing

e-permits, e-health

& e-SPS certificates

of agriculture products

for better export clearance

by connecting

to the NSW and PCS

at the exporting country.

Cross-border

electronic exchange

e.g. e-SPS Certificates

exchange,

e-CO,

e-AWB (Air Waybill)

Understand

and meet

the buyers’

requirements,

e.g.

Quality

Standards &

Certifications

Importing Country Exporting Country

Farmer

Group

Our Target

1

2 2

4 3

NSW NSW PCS PCS

NSW = Regulatory National Single Window PCS = Port Community System

Page 8 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Proposed Specific Measures at the national and regional-cooperation level.

1. Building capacity on management best practices and digitalization

for smallholder-farmer collaborations in improving their quality

production, packaging and traceability management.

2. Building capacity on marketing/trading management and

digitalization for smallholder-farmers and SME traders, e.g. through

e-marketplace participation for accessing market information,

publishing their product information online, receiving order and

conducting fulfillment transactions electronically.

3. Promoting and assisting the food/agriculture-related regulatory

agencies in streamlining and digitizing their internal operations and

services, e.g. for issuing import/export-related Permits, Licenses,

and Health/SPS Certificates electronically.

4. Promoting and assisting those regulatory agencies to electronically

coordinate in the NSW platform and cross-border paperless trading,

e.g. for single window entry, and cross-border information exchange.

Page 9 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Agriculture Management Best Practices and Digitization can innovatively assist smallholder farmers.

A smart phone can read the 2D barcode label of this agri-food

product, then the traceability information (where this product

coming from, product/nutrition information, how to cook, etc.) can

be readily accessible through Internet.

http://2d.foodtrace.net:8888/TM/display.jsp?criteria=TM-GFS-001_8858893905962_5358108_02#

A Case Example

Page 10 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

1. Registration process of flora plantations, associated lists of flora and their quota/capacities (Application Form-pp15, and Registered/Output Form-pp16)

2. Amendment process for flora plantations, flora lists and quotation (addition, deletion, new flora, other changes etc.) (Forms pp 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)

3. CITES Import Permits to Thailand (Form pp 13 + Certificate of Origin + CITES Export Permits + Phytosanitary Cert in some cases) from the origin country, and requesting for CITES Import Permits

4. CITES Export Permits from Thailand (Form pp 16, pp 13 + CITES Import Permits from the destination country), and requesting for CITES Export Permits

5. CITES Transit Process at the border (Form pp 13 + CITES Import Permits at the destination, and transit clearance process at the border)

1. Importers/Exporters can submit their application forms online without physical visits to the government office.

2. Importers/Exporters can check status of their applications online.

3. Government officers can issue the CITES Permits online.

4. Those CITES Permits issuing at the DOA main office can be sent electronically to the DOA border office, and also to match with the corresponding Customs Declaration for faster/more compliant border clearance (through National Single Window).

5. Those different application forms, and CITES import/export/transit-related Permits could be in electronic forms, or printed forms as requested.

6. Data cross checking between the DOA main office, the DOA border office, and Customs to reduce fraud, and improve accuracy.

7. Amendments (Add/Update/Delete) can easily handled electronically.

- Electronic application

submission instead of paper

documents

- Electronic-based workflow

transactions, e.g. automatic

validation and workflow

automation.

- Faster/less cost:

2-3 physical visits

were reduced to

1 physical visit,

or none for each

transaction

- Better compliance with data

cross checking

- Manual and paper-based

application submission

- Paper-based workflow

transactions, e.g.

validation, approval,

archive and search.

- Costly and take

several days for

2-3 physical visits

to complete each

transaction

- Difficulty in data

cross checking &

validation with possible paper

fraud and error prone.

Change Management Challenges within each government agency!

To a new “To-Be” Process

& Environment From the familiar “As-Is” Process

& Environment

• Continuous

leadership

from Director

General

• Strong inter-

division

collaboration

• Systematic

Process

Change

Management

Page 11 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Change Management Challenges among government agencies!

To a new “To-Be”

Electronic Single Window

(single submission),

Paperless Transactions

& Environment

From the “As-Is”

Multiple Windows,

Manual Process

& Environment

• Continuous

leadership

from Prime

Minister

• Strong inter-

agency

collaboration, e.g.

inter-agency

process redesign

• National-level

Project Mgmt

Office (PMO)

• NSW Central

Operator for

Investment,

Development,

Operations.

Page 12 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Recommendations for international and/or regional co-operation

Conduct detailed case studies and/or assist the development of

national or sub-regional pilot projects for smallholder clusters, e.g.

household farmers and SME traders to

engage in cross-border agriculture trade

with agriculture & trade management best practices.

Develop policy recommendations and guidelines on how to formulate

and implement national agriculture value chain development plan.

Develop management guidelines on

– How to develop e-SPS/e-Health Certificates and

related import/export e-permits issuing systems,

– How to adopt standards related to traceability, e.g.

UN/CEFACT traceability standards.

Provide related capacity building/sub-regional and national workshops .

Thank you

sk@ku-inova.org

Dr. Somnuk Keretho UNNExT Advisory Committee

Director, Institute for IT Innovation Kasetsart University, Bangkok

Page 14 Somnuk Keretho, PhD

Speaker - Dr. Somnuk Keretho

Somnuk Keretho is a faculty member of Computer Engineering Department, and the

founding Director of Institute for IT Innovation (INOVA), a research and development

institute of Kasetsart University, Thailand, specializing in ICT-enabled innovation,

trade facilitation, traceability and e-logistics initiatives including National Single

Window strategic planning and implementation, enterprise information architecture for

e-government and e-business, business process analysis and improvement, data

harmonization and modeling, ICT-related standards and interoperability, e-transaction

related laws, and process-oriented quality software engineering.

He has leded several ICT strategic projects at organizational, national and regional levels. For the past

seven years, he has assisted Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, National Economic

and Social Development Board, Ministry of Transport, Port Authority of Thailand, and Ministry of Agriculture

in architecting “Thailand Single-Window e-Logistics” related projects including its national e-logistics

strategy, implementation plans, interoperability and standards, harmonization and simplification of trade and

transport-related documents and procedures, automatic electronic-gate systems development for the

Bangkok Port and the Leamchabang Sea Port, and other software development projects.

Several of those projects are being aligned with some regional and international collaborations, in which Dr.

Keretho has actively engaged mostly related to trade facilitation, single window and paperless trading

initiatives through UNESCAP, UNECE, APEC, ASEAN and GMS. He has played several roles in catalyzing

the creation of and actively contributing to the United Nations Network of Experts for Paperless Trade in Asia

and the Pacific (www.unescap.org/unnext), and providing several technical supports to the APEC Paperless

Trading and ASEAN Single Window Initiatives. He is the main author of the UNNExT Business Process

Analysis Guide, the UNNExT Data Harmonization Guide and the UNNExT Guide for Single Window

Planning and Implementation.