83273 Developing a Trade Information Portal July 2012 Developing a Trade Information Portal This Guide was prepared by Luc Pugliatti on behalf of the International Trade Department of the World Bank.  It forms part of a series of good practice guides prepared to assist reformers and policy makers in ap- plying the principles outlined in the World Bank’s publication: Border Management Modernization, McLin- den, G., Fanta, E., Widdowson, D., and Doyle, T. (eds) World Bank, Washington DC, 2011. See http://www. worldbank.org/trade for more information. Contents 1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. What is a Trade Information Portal?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. First Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1  Setting the Scope and Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2  Setting up the Governance Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.3  Legal Basis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Planning the Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1  Appointing a Project Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.2  Method for collating information from Agencies and presenting it to the public. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.3  Content and Design Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.4  Operational Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5. Development and Implementation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1  Implementation Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.2  System Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 5.3  Data Model and Database Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 5.4  Functional Architecture and Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 6. Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 6.1  Policies and Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 7. Measuring the Effectiveness of the Trade Information Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 8. The Trade Information Portal and the Single Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 9. Acronyms and Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Table of Figures Figure 1: System Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Figure 2: Information Relationship Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Figure 3: Result of structured query on Commodity table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Figure 4: Result of query on specific commodity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Figure 5: Result of query on specific measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Figure 6: Example Procedure Flowchart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 1 Introduction A number of countries have introduced or are con- not exist and even when they do they are often in- sidering the introduction of a Trade Information complete, out of date or the content may not cover Portal as a means of facilitating trade and increas- the entire spectrum of information that a trader ing transparency. For WTO members or countries may wish to obtain to ensure compliance with im- in the process of acceding to the WTO, a Trade In- port, export or transit requirements. It is therefore formation Portal will also assist them in complying desirable to create a single platform where all the with new commitments currently being negotiated information relating to trade from all the various as part of the Doha Development Round. The nego- agencies is aggregated under one roof and is readily tiations aim to strengthen the provisions of Article available for searching and viewing. This is what X of GATT which currently requires that all regula- we call, in this Guide, a Trade Information Portal. tory trade related information “shall be published promptly in such a manner as to enable governments Often a Trade Information Portal is seen as a first step and traders to become acquainted with them”.1 towards the introduction of an electronic National Single Window, which is also increasingly being seen In many developed nations, trade related informa- as a way of affording greater facilitation to trade. tion is readily available across a number of websites maintained by each government agency responsible This Guide discusses the issues and challenges that for a particular aspect of trade regulation. In some developing nations are likely to face when imple- of these countries, the government even provides a menting a Trade Information Portal and provides a website that consolidates all of this information in checklist of practical guidelines for the steps that one user friendly website. However, in many devel- might be required in order to achieve effective im- oping nations, such agency specific websites may plementation. 2 What is a Trade Information Portal? A ‘portal’, in common Internet parlance, is a web- in relation to all the government agencies that con- site that provides a single point of access for certain trol export, import or transit business. classes of information and that is normally seen as the first place one would go in order to find the spe- The starting position is typically that this information cific information one might require. is in the domain of a number of different government agencies and that, often, the scope of what pertains On the face of it, the name “Trade Information Por- to one agency overlaps with or impacts another. This tal”, therefore, sounds fairly self-explanatory, i.e. the results in a trader having to seek information from primary site where one can obtain all the informa- more than one place which, in many countries, in- tion on regulatory requirements needed to undertake volves having to go to the agencies in person. Of- international trade. However, the term can be equal- ten, in the absence of a single authoritative reference ly applied to websites of a quite different nature. For point, the interpretation of certain requirements by example, there are a number of websites sponsored one agency may conflict with the way requirements by those government or quasi-government organiza- are interpreted by another agency causing unneces- tions that are aimed at export promotion. Examples sary effort and cost to be expended in attempting to of this kind of website are the Singapore govern- meet various government requirements. ment’s IESingapore2 or the New Zealand Govern- ment’s Trade and Enterprise website.3 There are also A single source of all regulatory information, pro- websites that provide traders who wish to do busi- vided it is comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date, ness in a specific country with information about can result in tangible benefits in terms of trade fa- how to find business partners (e.g. distributors, sup- cilitation. For a start there would be substantial cost pliers, business opportunities, etc.) in that country. savings if proper guidance can be obtained with- These are commonly referred to as B2Ba websites or out the need to seek advice in person from several “marketplaces”. Examples of this kind of website are locations. Furthermore, conflicts would be avoided the Norwegian Trade Portal,4 the Thai Department of by having a single authoritative reference point, as International Trade Promotion’s website,5 and the Sri would potential penalties for non-compliance. Lanka Export Development website,6 to name a few. Indeed there may be more than one such website in Cumulatively, these savings in time and cost should a single country, overlapping in scope, such as the cut the overall cost of doing business and reduce the Trade Portal of India7 and TradeIndia.8 time to import or export goods thus contributing to a country increasing its overall standing in terms of These websites may provide some regulatory in- transparency and ease of doing business. formation but are primarily aimed at business and export promotion. In this Guide we are concerned However, in spite of its obvious benefits, in many with a Trade Information Portal as a resource pro- developing countries there are numerous challenges vided by governments to traders in order to obtain, involved in developing and implementing such a sys- from one single source, all the information that im- tem. porters or exporters in a given country may require in order to comply with their regulatory obligations a B2B: Business to Business 3 First Steps 3.1  Setting the Scope and Vision In the case of exports, a trader may need to obtain an export permit or license if there are restrictions A trader wishing to import or export commodities in place for certain products such as those to protect often needs to comply with various regulatory re- natural resources. quirements long before the goods arrive and need to be declared to Customs at the border. Various ministries or agencies may be involved in this process, each responsible for applying provi- Firstly, an importer or exporter may need to register sions that may be enshrined in basic laws as well as a business with the relevant authority (e.g. the as in decrees, regulations, instructions or other legal Ministry of Trade). instruments. Secondly, in the case of imports, the goods that a Finally, a trader needs to comply with the provisions trader wishes to import may need to comply with dictated by the Customs Law and other legislation certain technical standards which may be specified in relation to the proper procedures for clearing the in regulations. In this case the trader may need to goods for import, export or transit at the border. present an import plan to the relevant authority These provisions will vary according to different re- and/or obtain certificates or permits in advance of gimes such as imports for domestic consumption, importation. This is often the case for goods such warehousing, import for re-export, inward process- as telecommunication equipment, vehicles, medi- ing, etc. cal equipment, pharmaceuticals, food and animal or plant products. In order for a website to give comprehensive guid- ance about all of the above, it would need to ag- Even if standards are not made mandatory by regu- gregate information pertaining to several agencies. lations, traders may wish to ensure that the goods This would typically comprise a complete catalogue they import or export comply with prevailing inter- of all the laws, regulations, instructions, measures national standards or with any recommended na- or other legal instruments related to trade, as well as tional standards for those products and, in order to instructions on procedures and access to the coun- ascertain that information, they may need to seek try’s tariff requirements. guidance from a relevant government authority. Therefore, when embarking on the development of Imports of food, agricultural products or live ani- a Trade Information Portal, it is important at the out- mals would typically be subject to sanitary or phyto- set to have, a clear vision of what the scope of the sanitary measures requiring a permit to be obtained portal should be in terms of what information will from those agencies responsible for enforcing these be published. This involves identifying which agen- requirements or restrictions. cies play a role and what information they oversee. In this Guide we refer to these agencies, collectively, Furthermore, there may be a requirement to obtain as the Agencies. an import license for certain products if these are subject to non-automatic licensing rules, typically b This is often due to limitations in the statistical capa- for products that are subject to quotas, or to auto- bilities of the Customs agency’s declaration processing matic licensing rules for the purposes of collecting system that force other agencies to collect statistics rel- trade statistics.b evant to their own areas of responsibility or mandate. 6 | Developing a Trade Information Portal 3.2  Setting up the Governance This may sound like a simple matter of agreeing Structure to a system of collaboration between the agencies. However, in many countries, this free flow of infor- In this context, it is clear that a mechanism must mation may be constrained by bureaucratic or cul- be found for ensuring that all the Agencies collabo- tural impediments. Indeed, there may be laws that rate in supplying the information required, both at prevent exchange of information between agencies. the initial stages of setting up the portal and as an These laws may relate to operational information of on-going responsibility, to ensure that the portal is a sensitive nature whilst the Trade Information Por- comprehensive and kept up-to-date with changes or tal would only deal with information which should new information as soon as it is available. be available in the public domain. Nonetheless, some agencies may interpret the laws as prevent- Therefore, it is advisable that a governance model ing them from supplying any information to another for the initial implementation and future gover- agency. It would therefore be advisable to establish nance of the portal should be put in place at the a legal basis for the Trade Information Portal which outset. This could be a Steering Committee or simi- will allow an open exchange both during the initial lar collaborative body in which each of the agen- setting-up period and during on-going operation. cies involved is represented as a stakeholder. The particular circumstances of each country will de- The instrument that needs to be put in place will termine what the most appropriate arrangements vary from country to country but the important should be in terms of chairing this body but, typi- thing is that it should be an enabling tool whilst, cally, it would be a Ministry that has an overarch- at the same time, putting certain obligations on the ing responsibility in terms of promoting trade fa- Agencies and the Lead Agency. This could take the cilitation or a pivotal role in terms of reform and form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) modernization of the trade sector. between the Agencies and the Lead Agency or it may need to be a decree or instruction from an au- The first task for the Steering Committee should be thority above the parties involved, e.g. the Prime to nominate one agency as the lead. This agency Minister. would have the responsibility of coordinating efforts and managing the development and implementa- The key issues that would need to be covered by the tion project. It would, however, act upon policy de- MOU (or similar instrument) would be as follows. cisions made collectively by the Steering Commit- • The Agencies and the Lead Agency should agree tee. In this Guide, we refer to this agency as the to nominate a responsible official or officials, as Lead Agency. the point of contact with each other for all mat- ters relating to the Trade Information Portal. 3.3  Legal Basis • The Agencies and the Lead Agency should agree to communicate promptly to each other any During the initial setting up phase information will matters or issues of importance arising from need to be gathered from the various Agencies. It policy or management decisions of relevance to is therefore advisable that the Steering Commit- the information published on the website and tee should agree on the fundamental principles of its consequential effect on the public. supplying information to the Lead Agency. Experi- • The Agencies should communicate to the Lead ence has shown that information websites quickly Agency any relevant information in advance become out of date after the initial implementa- of such information being made available to tion. Indeed some websites are launched with the public. The timing of such advance no- many pages still ‘under construction’. Therefore, tice should be agreed between the parties and for a Trade Information Portal to be always infor- should be sufficient to enable the Lead Agency mation-rich and up-to-date, it is necessary to im- to publish the information on the website in a plement a proactive mechanism for ensuring that timely manner. Conversely, the Lead Agency fresh information flows freely from the Agencies to should undertake to publish the information re- the Lead Agency. ceived from the Agencies on the website in the First Steps | 7 time frame agreed between them and should works or hosting services to enable the opera- agree to carry out any amendments or deletions tion of the website. resulting from a notification by the Agencies • The Lead Agency should endeavour to ensure promptly on receipt of such notification. that the website is available for public viewing • Wherever possible the Agencies should make to the maximum possible extent and should every effort to supply the information to the undertake to ensure that any third-party ser- Lead Agency in an electronic format or in ma- vice suppliers fully comply with their contrac- chine readable format. tual obligations in relation to system perfor- • The Agencies should notify the Lead Agency mance and availability. promptly of any inaccuracies or omissions in • The Lead Agency should distribute to the the information published on the Website and Agencies statistical reports of website usage on of information becoming inactive or no longer a regular basis. being required. • The MOU should make provisions for a conflict • The Lead Agency should maintain a log of any resolution mechanism in the case of a dispute information received from the Agencies and of between the Agencies and the Lead Agency any notifications of changes. which is appropriate to the circumstances of • The Lead Agency should undertake to forward each country. to the relevant Agencies in an agreed electronic format any enquiries received from the public via the website promptly on receipt of such en- Key Recommendations quiry. • Identify scope of information to be published • The Agencies should agree to respond prompt- ly in an agreed electronic format to any enquiry • Identify key stakeholder agencies from the public forwarded to them by the Lead • Set up governance structure for development and implementa- Agency. tion project and on-going operation • The Lead Agency should be responsible for en- • Provide legal basis for development and operation of the portal tering into contracts with third-party suppliers (MOU or similar) for the provision of hardware, software, net- 4 Planning the Project Once the governance structure for the Trade Infor- 4.2  Method for collating information mation Portal and a legal basis for the supply and from Agencies and presenting it to publishing of information are in place between the stakeholders, the first task for the Lead Agency the public should be to develop a Strategic Plan defining the The Project Team should determine how informa- options for the development and operation of the tion is currently published by the various Agen- portal. The plan and the recommendations should cies. The likelihood is that, even in less developed be presented to the Steering Committee for discus- countries, most agencies will have a website of their sion, selection and approval. own or as part of their ministry’s website. Experi- ence suggests that in most countries Customs will already have a website. 4.1  Appointing a Project Team However, these websites may be in different stages The Lead Agency should appoint a Project Team of completeness in terms of what information is which may be assembled from internal resources or published and how up-to-date and consistent they through the appointment of a competent contractor are. Inevitably, all the websites will have a different or from a combination of both. The composition of ‘look and feel’ and a different structure of how the the team will be determined by the specific circum- information is organized. stances of each country. However, in general terms, as well as a Project Manager/Team Leader, it would The Project Team needs to consider whether the be beneficial to include personnel with a broad un- approach to building a Trade Information Portal as derstanding of trade procedures across the board, a focal point for trade related information can be ICT specialists with knowledge and experience of achieved by building a website with a list of topics modern web design technologies and someone with that are cross-linked to each agency’s own website an understanding of the legal landscape. in order to provide the content. The project team should elaborate the Strategic Consultation with the Agencies is required in this Plan focusing on the key choices to be made. These respect but the Project Team should be mindful that choices relate to the following key issues. these discussions may be biased by each stakehold- er’s desire to uphold its role, identity and indepen- • Method for collating information from the dence. Agencies and presenting it to the public • Content and Design Features of the Website Even if the information on all agencies’ websites • Operational Model were complete, accurate and up-to-date, there are • Style disadvantages to this model. A trader enquiring on • On-going Sustainability the website would not be able to see inter-related • Legal Aspects information from different agencies without jump- • Financing Model ing to different websites and having to navigate via • Risks and Impediments various menu options to get to the relevant data. For example, having found out the tariff for certain The issues involved in these choices are discussed goods, the trader would then need to go to another in more detail in the sections below. website to see what the SPS (Sanitary-Phytosani- 10 | Developing a Trade Information Portal tary) requirements are for that commodity and yet For the purpose of this Guide, which is largely aimed another website to see whether an import license is at less developed and developing countries, we will required and what the procedures are for obtaining assume that the limitations described above exist one. It is also possible that none, or only some, of and, therefore, the issues and recommendations dis- these websites would make reference to the laws or cussed will relate to what is required to implement regulations relating to those requirements. Indeed, a model where all the information related to trade many Agencies will use their own system for iden- is gathered from the various agencies and consoli- tifying the goods and may not employ the interna- dated into one website. tionally recognized HSc nomenclature. The alternative model is to aggregate all the infor- Key Recommendations mation in a single website so that it can be consoli- An early decision should be made and approved by the Steering dated, cross-referenced and presented in a logical Committee about the nature of the website (i.e. ‘cross-link to other and consistent format. This would probably result websites’ or ‘consolidated’) as this will determine the approach to in a degree of duplication, at least initially. The op- technology, operations and future management model. erational and governance model would have to al- low for any new information generated within an agency and relevant to trade to be uploaded to the 4.3  Content and Design Features Trade Information Portal. In time, however, a policy may evolve whereby the Trade Information Portal The Project Team, in the course of conducting the becomes the only source of such information and initial consultations with the Agencies, should at- other websites would point to it where appropriate. tempt to quantify the volume of information that will need to be collected or, in some cases, gener- A hybrid model may be feasible in which certain ated. This is in order to arrive at a best estimate of key information is already extensively and accu- the man-effort required which will, in turn, deter- rately available on a single website. For example, mine the resource requirements and the timetable at the core of any trade related information are all for development and implementation. the laws, decrees, regulations, instructions and any other legal texts that may be administered by the Furthermore, an analysis of the existing sources various agencies. In some countries, all the laws of data and how they inter-relate should lead to a are published on a single website (e.g. in New Zea- brainstorming of what functionality and features the land, where all the legislation is published on a website should provide. In doing this, the Project website maintained by the Parliamentary Council Team should consult extensively with the Agencies Office9). In this case, it would be feasible to use as well as trade practitioners (importers, exporters, a hyperlink whenever a law is referenced in the Trade Information Portal. If the laws are structured and indexed (as against being simple images in c The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding PDFd format) it would be possible to point directly System (HS) is an internationally standardized system to the relevant article or section. of names and numbers for classifying commodities. The HS System was developed and is maintained by Another case might be one in which the commodity the World Customs Organization (WCO) and is used, classification and tariff are already available on-line with regional or national variations, by Customs au- thorities in most countries on a website where users can search for a commod- d PDF: Portable Document Format. This is a format for ity by commodity code or by keywords. This is most storing documents so that they can be viewed as an likely to be on a Customs website, although not al- image of the original. This is often as a result of a ways. Research on the websites of various countries scan. It is possible, by using OCR (Optical Character has shown that the search capabilities can be lim- Recognition), for these documents to be scanned with searchable text. However, often, text stored in PDF ited and that any special measures (e.g. restrictions, copies of documents in websites, such as laws, cannot prohibitions) associated with a commodity may not be searched as OCR was not used or due to the limita- necessarily be shown. tions of recognising certain national alphabets. Planning the Project  | 11 brokers, transport operators) in order to understand 4.4  Operational Model the public’s needs and their typical behaviours when seeking information pertaining to their business. The key choices for the operational model concern: As a result of these activities the Project Team • Domain registration should elaborate a proposal for what the contents • Hosting of the website of the website should be and a rough estimate of • Approach to technology the amount of source data that will need to be col- • On-going sustainability lected. The following are likely to be the main types • Management of the website of information. • Laws, decrees, regulations, instructions and 4.4.1  Domain Registration any other legal instruments relating to trade • Commodity classification (probably in the HS The domain name for the Trade Information Portal format) and associated tariff(s) is a key choice as it will be the unique identifier of • Special measures applicable to specific com- the portal for the world at large and one of the key modities or products, e.g. prohibitions or re- elements of the website’s “branding”. strictions for SPS reasons • Technical standards required of specific catego- The only limitation in choosing a domain name ries of products is whether that domain is already registered. Oth- • FTA’s (Free Trade Agreements) determining a erwise, normal common sense applies. A domain preferential tariff or special requirements when name should be relatively short, uncomplicated, trading with the FTA’s parties easy to remember and descriptive of the nature and • Procedures and general instructions for dis- purpose of the website. It should avoid special char- charging regulatory obligations acters (e.g. hyphens, underscores, etc.) and contain • Forms used to apply for permits, licenses and words which are likely to be found when someone Customs clearance who does not know the exact web address tries to • Lists of codes required in various documents, find it through a search engine such as Google, Ya- e.g. country codes, units of measurement, cur- hoo, etc. rency codes, etc. • Publications (e.g. leaflets, newsletters) distrib- A domain name is made up of a suffix (e.g. .com, uted to the public .org) and a unique identifier, i.e. the chosen name.e • News or announcements in the national or lo- Together, they constitute the URLf for the website, cal press or by other means that is, the website’s address that uniquely identi- • Useful information such as addresses and con- fies its location on the web. tact details of various agencies’ offices or bor- der stations For government websites it is common to use top- level domains such as .gov.xx or .govt.xx where ‘xx’ The Project Team, in consultation with the Agen- is the country’s international code, as in customs. cies and the trade practitioners, should elaborate a gov.au or customs.govt.nz. model of how the information should be presented on the website and how to make it easily accessible These domain names normally have to be registered through search functions in order to satisfy most with a special government authority whereas com- query requirements. mon domain names are registered with a number of international registrars and purchase, registration and The Strategic Plan should therefore comprise an on-going maintenance can easily be done on-line. outline design and content structure for the website. e Technically, the suffix is known as a top-level domain The data analysis and database design will be dis- and the chosen name as a sub-domain cussed in Section 5.3 below. f URL: Uniform Resource Locator 12 | Developing a Trade Information Portal Normally, domain names are purchased for a lim- 4.4.2 Hosting ited period (e.g. one year) and can be periodically renewed. With regard to the hosting model the choice comes down essentially to the three options below. In se- Perhaps the key concept that should be represented lecting the preferred option the following consider- by the name is the national identity as there are ations should be taken into account. various websites around the world with the words ‘trade’ or ‘portal’ and the suffix alone may not be In-house hosting enough to make the website stand out in Google searches. The advantage of in-house hosting is that the Lead Agency is in complete control of the infrastructure, Therefore it may be desirable to register a name service and content of the website. However, the such as xxxtradeportal.gov.xx or xxxtrade.gov.xx hardware for the hosting server and routers and the where is “xxx” is the name of the country. necessary telecommunications bandwidth to sus- tain the expected volume of traffic on the website Having settled on a domain name it would be advis- will have to be purchased or leased. In addition, ad- able to register the equivalent .com, .org. and .net equate and secure premises must be provided. The domains in addition to the .gov.xx domain, as this Lead Agency would have to ensure the operational prevents someone else from registering them (thus availability of the website on a daily basis, put in causing confusion) and will maximise the probabil- place the necessary security precautions (e.g. fire- ity of users finding the website. walls) to protect it from unauthorized access and provide sufficient redundancy (e.g. standby servers) All the domain names can be linked to the server to provide for disaster recovery. where the website is hosted. However, one of them must be the primary domain name which must be An agency should therefore consider whether its resolved through a DNSg server in order to find the present level of ICT competency and staff availability IP addressh of the host server. If the primary domain is such that the above requirements can be satisfacto- name cannot be resolved (e.g. if the server is down rily accommodated or whether additional competent or the network is unavailable) access to the website staff needs to be recruited. will fail. The cost implications of this option should also be Normally, a hosting service also provides a DNS ser- carefully considered not only in terms of the initial vice and international domain names can be trans- capital investment but also in terms of the on-going ferred to this service. operational costs, maintenance and support costs and likelihood of expansion. However, in our context, it is likely that a .gov.xx domain may only be hosted on a designated govern- ment DNS server. What should therefore be taken Outsourced hosting into consideration in deciding whether to register .gov.xx as the primary domain name is whether that This option involves contracting a competent sup- server and the country’s network infrastructure are plier to set up a dedicated environment at their reliable enough and whether enough bandwidth ex- premises. The supplier would enter into a SLA ists to handle the expected volume of requests. (Service Level Agreement) with the Lead Agency and would need to provide the necessary hard- Registration of a domain name will normally also make a number of email addresses available. It will therefore be possible to utilize, for example, ad- g DNS: Domain Name System dresses such as enquiries@xxxtrade.gov.xx or con- h IP Address: Internet Protocol Address, the unique ad- tact@xxxtrade.gov.xx. dress the for the website Planning the Project  | 13 ware, infrastructure and personnel in order to meet site platform for the purpose of carrying out further the service and performance targets agreed in the development, testing and training. It is a common SLA (e.g. 24/7 service, 99% availability, protection and good practice for this facility to be kept separate from intrusion, etc). In the contract, provisions can from the live environment. be made for scaling up the service over time if re- quired. In the context of a Trade Information Portal this fa- cility also serves the purpose of being the site where The advantage of this model is that the Lead Agency new information is uploaded so that it can be re- does not need to worry about acquiring or maintain- viewed and, if necessary, approved by management ing the infrastructure and having to employ compe- before release in the public domain. tent technical personnel. The development environment can be set up as an This arrangement, however, would probably be in-house facility or it can also be hosted in the cloud. more costly than in-house hosting as the agency would have to pay a commercial rate for the service. A further perceived disadvantage may be that the 4.4.4 Confidentiality data would reside outside the control of the agency. The issue of confidentially of the data is discussed A further variation of options 2 and 3 above is in Section 4.4.4 below. whether the service provider is located in-coun- try or off-shore. In either case, protection of the confidentiality of the data contained in the web- Cloud Hosting site would become a matter subject to guarantees extended by the service provider to the agency Cloud Hosting is a form of outsourced hosting where through their SLA. These would be covered by the the service is provided by a competent supplier that data protection laws of the jurisdiction where the is already geared up in terms of infrastructure to service resides. provide the service using its existing facilities which are designed to offer different levels of service, as If an off-shore service is chosen, the agency should well as the necessary security, availability and ex- consider whether the data protection laws of that pansion guarantees. Due to economies of scale, the country are adequate. Indeed they may well be cost of the service (normally a monthly operating more stringent than any data protection laws cur- fee) can be relatively low and it would be based rently in force in the agency’s country. on parameters such as storage space allocation and download speed. Concerns in this respect should be mitigated by the fact that the information contained in the There are a number of commercial providers that Trade Information Portal is not confidential as it is offer this kind of service. freely available in the public domain. At most, the website would store email addresses of signed-up This is probably the easiest option to implement as members but nothing of a commercially sensitive it requires no capital investment, no set-up, no tech- nature. nical personnel to maintain it and relatively low on- going costs. Like Option 2 above, however, it may However, the website would display legal informa- raise confidentiality concerns. tion and, conceivably, a hacker could gain access and maliciously alter it. Although unlikely, expo- sure to this danger does theoretically exist whether 4.4.3  Development, Training and Support with a service provider or an in-house set-up. 100% Environment security cannot be guaranteed by anyone, but host- ing providers normally adopt the most stringent Regardless of the choice of hosting model it is advis- security measures available to the ICT industry to able to set up a facility to host a copy of the web- prevent such attacks. Please refer to Section 4.4.9 14 | Developing a Trade Information Portal below with regard to how to mitigate the liabilities There are various toolkits available on the Inter- that may derive from such an occurrence. net that allow websites to be built and customized very easily, without any specialised IT technical knowledge, with a large choice of template lay- 4.4.5  Approach to Technology outs, colours, fonts, etc. to personalize the “look and feel”. However, the ability to develop dynamic The Trade Information Portal will probably require content is limited. a number of pages of generic information expressed in natural language for which plain HTML pagesi Option 2 would be perfectly adequate. Use an open source Content Management System Also, most of the navigation options are likely to (CMS). There are various products available with be standard facilities found on most web pages on rich libraries of ready-made functions that allow rel- the Internet, e.g. Home, About Us, Help, Site Map, atively easy assembly and customization of a web- Contact Us, FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), etc. site application. Popular products are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal (which, between them, hold the In addition, it is likely that the website would provide majority of the market share10) and others. for handling of news items, announcements, a cal- endar of forthcoming events of interest to the public and, of course, a trader should be able to search for Option 3 specific keywords across the entire website. Use a combination of off-the-shelf software compo- A variety of ready-made website building tools exist nents and custom code to build a bespoke system. that enable websites to be created and customised The major software platform vendors, such as Mi- with all the above facilities available as off-the-shelf crosoft or Oracle, provide a variety of products that plug-ins. can be used to build web applications. However, these involve purchasing a license and paying an However, it would be desirable for the website to han- on-going license fee. An alternative is to consider dle more than just static pages of information or the the use of open source products that are available standard facilities above. The website may contain at no cost. structured information centred on the relationship be- tween commodities, measures, procedures and laws. All of the above options are valid. The choice of technology approach should be determined by a In order to enable this functionality, this infor- combination of factors, including: mation needs to be stored as data in a database and the system must be able to create dynamic • The level of complexity in the website’s func- content and format it for screen viewing from the tionality, determined by the content and design data in the database. It is therefore necessary to features, requiring an appropriate set of devel- design a database that will be stored on the host opment tools server and to use a programming language to gen- • The degree of familiarity of the developers and erate the content. of the personnel assigned to future maintenance with specific tools available in the market Considering the above, the options for how to ap- • Budgetary constraints proach the development of the website revolve around the three alternatives below. Consider that the design of the database and the functionality built around it will require specialist Information Systems design and engineering skills. Option 1 Use a web building toolkit that offers pre-set tem- i HTML: Hyper-Text Mark-up Language, the most com- plates and add-ins (e.g. calendar, news, FAQ, etc). mon language for presenting content on a web page Planning the Project  | 15 Therefore, a policy decision should be made on how • All the software installed (e.g. office auto- to source skilled resources if these are not available mation, DBMS,j etc.) should be properly li- in-house. censed. If a support license fee is required by the license agreement this should be kept up to date. 4.4.6  On-going Sustainability • Anti-virus software should be installed and the subscription should be kept up to date. The sustainability of the website is a key issue to • Dedicated personnel with specialised skills consider at the onset of the project so that the nec- should be engaged and assigned to the full- essary provisions can be put in place. time management of the website. Experience in a number of countries has shown that, where In our context, sustainability can be measured by responsibility for managing a website was as- the following parameters. signed to existing staff on a part-time basis, the websites quickly became out of date or even • The website should be operational to the maxi- non-operational. mum possible extent (as close to 24/7 as pos- • Proper ICT management policies and proce- sible). This involves continuous monitoring of dures should be implemented to maintain the the website’s availability and prompt interven- equipment and software (i.e. backups, regular tion if there is a problem. maintenance, source code version control, au- • The content of the website should be kept dit trail of changes). up-to-date in a timely fashion with the latest • Knowledge of the software, technical architec- changes in laws, regulations, procedures, etc. ture and content of the website should prefer- that may affect trade practitioners. Ideally any ably reside within the Lead Agency or with a significant changes (especially ones that carry trusted provider appointed by the agency. a legal value) should be published well in ad- • An adequate budget should be made available vance of becoming effective. to cover the costs of implementing the above • News, bulletins, announcements, forthcoming provisions. events and other useful information from all the Agencies should be published regularly and in a timely manner. 4.4.7  Management of the Website • Enquiries submitted by the public via the web- As recommended above, a dedicated Trade Portal site should be handled promptly by being rout- Management Team should be appointed for the ed to the relevant authorities and by monitor- management of the website. The title and precise ing their progress. job descriptions of the personnel appointed may • Any bugs or issues reported by the public or vary from country to country according to specific by government users should be fixed promptly. circumstances but, at a minimum, the team should comprise personnel tasked with the following re- In order to meet the above criteria and ensure the sponsibilities: on-going sustainability of the Trade Information Portal in terms of fulfilling its function of providing trade practitioners with prompt, accurate and com- Trade Portal Manager prehensive information, the following key factors should be considered: The role of the Trade Portal Manager is to be respon- sible for the service provided by the website, man- • The choice of hosting model should ensure the age the activities of the Trade Portal Management maximum availability and scalability of the Team, report to the Lead Agency’s management website. about the performance of the website, be respon- • The infrastructure purchased to maintain the sible for maintaining the liaison with the Agencies’ website (e.g. the development environment) should be covered by a maintenance contract. j DBMS: Database Management System 16 | Developing a Trade Information Portal management and any other national authorities that The style should encompass the layout of the pages, may be involved, ensure that policy decisions about the colour schemes, the fonts, banners and logos, publishing trade related information are imple- menu styles and placement, policies about the use mented, ensure the accurate and timely publication of pictures or graphics and, generally, the naviga- of new content and deal with suppliers of services tional features. (e.g. hosting, maintenance, etc.). The style of a website is a matter of taste and prefer- Webmaster ence. However, some common sense recommenda- tions include: The role of the Webmaster is to manage the function- • The look of pages should be clean and clear ality of the website on a daily basis, upload any new • Pages should stick to as few topics as possible data supplied by the Agencies, make fixes and en- – a cluttered page is difficult to read hancements to the web software if necessary, moni- • The number of menus or links on a page should tor usage and performance, make recommendations not be excessive and should be logically orga- with regard to any technical improvements and be nized responsible for day-to-day maintenance tasks. • Banners and logos should be smart and distinc- tive Content Manager • Use of distracting features such as flashing im- ages should be minimized The role of the Content Manager is to liaise with • Navigational features should be logical and in- the Agencies, collect the content that needs to be tuitive so as to minimize the number of steps uploaded, proactively identify any new information needed to discover information that needs to be published, carry out data prepa- ration and conversions (e.g. scanning, convert- It might be advisable to build a few mock-ups to il- ing from Word or PDF to HTML, etc.), deal with lustrate the look and feel of the website. There are any queries submitted to the website and track the various tools available that allow this to be done Agencies’ progress in responding to them. easily, quickly and at no cost using pre-existing templates. These mock-ups can be presented to the The above personnel may be selected from in-house Steering Committee to assist with the decision. staff or specially recruited. In any event, it is likely that specific training will be necessary. The Lead Agency should therefore factor training courses into 4.4.9  Legal Aspects the project targeted to the specific training needs of the personnel selected. The content of the train- For websites that present regulatory information to ing courses will depend on the strategic choices the public it is desirable for the sake of maximum discussed above with regard to the hosting model, transparency that such information be legally bind- the approach to technology and, as far as the proce- ing. However, this presents certain challenges that dures for collecting and publishing information, on are not limited to developing countries. the governance model established for inter-agency collaboration. In addition to the legal texts themselves, the website will present information (e.g. instructions, proce- dures, etc.) all of which has a basis in law. For all 4.4.8 Style this information to be legally binding it will need to be synchronized with whatever system is in place in At an early stage it would be advisable to make a a given country in terms of when a law enters into decision on the future style (the “look and feel”) of force. In certain countries there may be an official ga- the website. This is a decision best made consensu- zette whilst others may rely on specific ad-hoc presi- ally as all the stakeholders being represented on the dential or ministerial instructions for every piece of website should feel comfortable with it. law or regulation. Planning the Project  | 17 In any event, a law or an amendment to an existing the content is always accurate and up-to- law will need to be passed to make the website a date. source of legally binding information. This process in itself is likely to take some time and it should The information contained in this website, therefore not be prejudicial to the implementation including any legal texts, does not carry le- of the website. gal value. In this respect, you should seek professional advice or seek advice from the To make the information on the website legally bind- relevant authority. ing, the Lead Agency responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the website would have to be absolutely The government agencies represented in confident that no transcriptions errors or omissions this website are not liable for any financial have ‘crept in’ in the process of uploading the texts losses, damages or legal actions resulting to the website. Also, there would be a considerable from the use of information published on obligation on the Lead Agency to protect the website this website. from malicious hacking. Whilst, as discussed above, maximum security measures should be taken as a We are not responsible for the content of matter of good practice, experience in other security any linked websites and we cannot guaran- conscious sectors, such as banking, has shown that tee that the links will always work.  These no website or system mediated over the public In- external websites are governed by different ternet is 100% immune. terms and conditions.” Furthermore, the prevailing trend in developing countries is for laws or fragments of laws to be pub- 4.4.10  Financing Model lished on various different websites rather than hav- ing an aggregated website of all the country’s laws. The Steering Committee should consider what op- Therefore, either they are all made legally binding tions are available for funding the initial develop- or the law should restrict this provision only to the ment and implementation of the Trade Information Trade Information Portal. The first scenario may be Portal and its on-going operation. vastly challenging for most countries whilst the sec- ond scenario could lead to confusion, possible mis- For the initial development the obvious choices are information and potentially conflict. through budget appropriation or by seeking support from a donor. A survey of various websites around the world shows that even in developed countries, texts and In terms of the on-going operational costs and, laws published on government information web- should the development have been funded from the sites are not legally binding, e.g., in the case of national budget, the Steering Committee may con- Legislation New Zealand (mentioned above) or the sider whether these costs and the capital investment UK’s HMRC website UKTradeInfo.11 In such cases, could be recovered through levying a user fee or a disclaimer is normally published on the website some other means. limiting the government’s liability. In the spirit of transparency and trade facilitation The Lead Agency should therefore consider publish- it is the government’s obligation to make regula- ing a disclaimer along the following lines: tory information freely available to the public. It is therefore difficult to see how a financing model (e.g. “In this website, information is published a subscription only service) could be built around that pertains to or originates from vari- providing information which should be freely avail- ous government agencies or other insti- able in the public domain. Furthermore, the Trade tutions. We constantly try to ensure that Information Portal would not provide a transaction- the content of this website is accurate and al service where a transaction fee can be justified by relevant. However, information is subject the added value that would result from a simplified to change and we cannot guarantee that electronic process. 18 | Developing a Trade Information Portal However, if recovering costs is imperative, the Steer- It is customary project management good practice to ing Committee may wish to consider the following catalogue these risks in a Risk Register and to evalu- options: ate the likelihood of the risk occurring together with the impact it would have on the project. The Project a. Levy a moderate fee for certain value added Team should also develop appropriate mitigation services (see Section 5.4.5 below). These could strategies in the event of the risk materializing. be subscription only services such as providing targeted alerts by email or SMS about specific During the course of the project the risks should topics of interest to a subscriber or download- be continuously monitored and the Project Team ing publications which should otherwise have should be ready to implement the necessary avoid- been purchased ance or mitigation strategies. b. Assuming that a country has not yet imple- mented an electronic transaction environment To a large extent the potential risks for this kind of such as Single Window, allow for forms re- project will be the same as any ICT project and good quired by traders to apply for permits or licens- management practice should be adopted in order to es from various agencies to be downloaded in- manage these risks. stead of having to pick up an original from the agency and levy a fee commensurate with the Other risks will be specific to the circumstances of degree of facilitation that this provides. This each country. would, however, require some functionality to be built into the website’s software to en- Also, a number of the provisions recommended sure that a form can only be used once (e.g. a above and a clear strategy for the project will go unique barcode for every download) as well as a long way towards mitigating the risks of failure some automated facility within each agency to that would result from an unclear vision of the ob- authenticate and reconcile the form submitted jectives, lack of ownership and direction and poor c. Another possibility is to make advertising planning. space available on the website Perhaps the highest risk specific to this kind of proj- Option a) and b) would also involve having to ect is the failure to collect complete and accurate implement some form of electronic payment and, quality information from all the Agencies and ag- generally, would add to the complexity and cost of gregate it in a user friendly and informative way. developing the website. This would result in a poor image in the mind of the public of the usefulness of the website and lack of When evaluating these options, the Steering Com- confidence in the government. mittee should weigh the benefit of collecting a fee against national policy decisions to facilitate trade Information may be kept by the Agencies in an or- and increase transparency, as well as the broad ben- ganized format (e.g. databases, folders, lists, etc.) or efits that would derive as a result of increased use it may simply be knowledge residing with key indi- of the website (e.g. cost savings in disseminating in- viduals. The task of identifying and structuring this formation and from reduced face-to-face interaction information may therefore prove to be challenging. to handle queries or resolve conflicts). Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, agencies may be unwilling or unaccustomed to sharing information 4.4.11  Risks and Impediments or they may simply find it difficult to source it. It is therefore important that the Project Team should The Project Team, as part of developing the Stra- have the necessary authority to collect the informa- tegic Plan, should identify any potential risks and tion and that appropriate instructions are given to impediments that may prejudice the success of the all the individuals within the agencies who will be project. tasked with assisting the Project Team. Planning the Project  | 19 Much will also depend on the skill and experience be necessary for the website to stay relevant and of the Project Team members to scout for informa- up-to-date. There is a risk that, without proper insti- tion and extract the required knowledge from their tutional arrangements to ensure a proactive supply counterparts. Therefore a choice of individuals with of information from the agency to the Trade Infor- a broad understanding of the context and the back- mation Portal, the flow of information will dry up ground as well as the necessary analytical skills will and agencies will fall back on their old stove-piped be crucial. methods for disseminating information to the pub- lic. The Steering Committee should issue the proper After the initial set-up and once the website is op- authority and instructions to ensure that on-going erational, on-going inter-agency collaboration will proactive collaboration is institutionalised. Key Recommendations • Select a domain name which clearly identifies the nature and scope of the Trade Information Portal as well as its national identity • Carefully consider the cost implications and skill requirements of purchasing and maintaining an in-house infrastructure for the website versus procuring an outsourced or cloud model • Select an approach to the technology platform for the development of the website which is appropriate to the level of skills and experience available for development and to budgetary constraints. Consider that the design of the database and the functionality built around it may require specialist Information Systems design and engineering skills and, if these are not available in-house, a policy decision must be made on how to procure them • Address at the onset the issues to be considered in order to ensure the future sustainability of the project. In particular consider the need to appoint a dedicated Trade Portal Management Team • Develop an early estimate of the budgetary requirement to cover the on-going support costs and take the necessary steps to ensure that the budget is made available • Consider the implications of making the information on the website legally binding • Evaluate whether a fee based financing model is feasible and/or desirable • Carefully assess the risks that may prejudice the success of the project and develop appropriate avoidance or mitigation strategies 5 Development and Implementation 5.1  Implementation Plan • System software specifications • Physical infrastructure specifications Once the key options laid out in the Strategic Plan • Hosting service specifications have been approved by the Steering Committee, the • Estimate of development costs Lead Agency may proceed with the development • Estimate of procurement costs and implementation phase of the project. Herein- • Estimate of on-going service costs after, the project is a classic IT project comprising • Project Plan with deliverables, milestones and definition, build and implementation. There are assignment of responsibilities a number of good practice project management • Quality standards methods that the Lead Agency can follow and their • Acceptance criteria and procedures preference will dictate this choice. One of the pre- • Procurement Plan vailing methods in the IT industry, for example, is • Training Plan PRINCE2, a project management method developed • Risk Register by the UK Central Computer and Communications Agency.12 Some of these topics are part of standard ICT proj- The first task for the Project Team will be to develop ect methodology and this Guide will not dwell on an Implementation Plan. This Guide does not seek them. The key topics relating to this particular con- to be prescriptive about its methods, style and con- text are expanded in more detail in the sections tent. However, its objective is to provide the bench- below. mark against which the project’s progress, quality and success are measured. Perhaps the most challenging of the tasks during implementation will be collecting all the required In broad terms, an Implementation Plan should information from the different Agencies to load onto probably cover the following topics. the website. The Project Team should give consid- eration as to how this is going to be achieved. As • Re-statement of the project key objectives mentioned earlier this will require a legal basis for collaboration between agencies but it will also re- • Scope of work (quantification of tasks, e.g. quire manpower to locate and collect the source number of laws to be collected, pages to be data, format it so that it can be loaded into the sys- published, etc.) tem as well as key it in where necessary. Some con- • Work method including management, control tent, e.g. the general information pages, will need to and accountability be generated if it is not already available elsewhere. • Project Team structure • Required counter-part resources In formulating a resource plan the Lead Agency • Estimate of work effort should consider the feasibility of forming an im- • Statement of Requirements (Functional Re- plementation team that comprises representatives quirements, Operational Requirements) from each of the Agencies. Again, this will require • Functional Architecture (definition of the func- agreement between the agencies to enable this ‘sec- tionality of the system) ondment’. However, the advantage would be that • Technical Architecture information can be identified and sourced by per- • Application software design specifications sonnel who are competent in their specific domains 22 | Developing a Trade Information Portal and who have unrestricted access to people and re- the host server and to use a programming language sources within each of the agencies. Furthermore, it to generate the content. would establish a collaborative basis for a working model which can then be applied, in a scaled down There are various technology products, both propri- format, to the on-going operation of the portal. etary and open source, that allow such a system to be constructed. Therefore this Guide does not seek to be prescriptive in this respect. The choice, as 5.2  System Architecture mentioned earlier, will depend on preference and familiarity with specific technologies. In this section we describe the key issues concern- ing the technical approach for building the website However, in general terms, the system should com- and populating it with information. prise the software layers illustrated in the following picture bearing in mind that, if the option of using The options concerning the technology platform an off-the-shelf CMS is selected, these components have been outlined in Section 4.4.5 above. The may be wrapped up in a single bundle. Technical Architecture will therefore be largely de- pendent on the strategic choices made. 1. Hardware and Infrastructure These are the computers (servers), peripher- However, as mentioned in that section, it would be als, telecommunication equipment and lines. desirable for the website to provide functionality be- In an outsourced model, the hardware and in- yond displaying static HTML pages. frastructure would be provided by the hosting service. In order to display complex inter-related informa- 2. Operating System tion in response to a query, the information needs The most popular operating systems for hosting to be stored in a database and the system must be websites are UNIX derivatives such as Linux able to carry out certain inter-actions with the users, with approximately 64% share and Windows create dynamic content in response to their queries with about 36%.13 and format it for screen viewing. It is therefore nec- 3. Web Server Application essary to design a database that will be stored on The web server application (commonly known as web server) is a set of services that provide the connectivity between the Content Manage- Figure 1.  System Architecture ment layer and the end-user via the Internet. The most popular web servers are Apache (in a Web Browser 7 UNIX environment) and IIS in a Windows op- erating system environment.14 4. Database Store Web-Based Content Management System 6 Popular choices for databases, depending on the operating system, are Oracle or SQL Server or open source products like MySQL. Database Connection 5 5. Database Connection The database connection is the layer that han- dles the data transfers between the application Database Store 4 Web Server Application 3 and the database. This is normally bundled with the choice of database. 6. Web-Based Content Management System Operating System 2 This is the application which provides the re- quired functionality to structure the data and Hardware and Infrastructure 1 manage the interaction with the users. It pro- vides web-based facilities to display, add, edit Development and Implementation  | 23 and remove data. By far the most popular lan- formation regardless of the angle from which a trader guage is PHP,15 an open source product, fol- may approach a query, as described in Section 5.4.3 lowed by Microsoft’s ASP.NET and Java. below. The objective is to allow traders to discover 7. Web Browser anything they need to know in the easiest and quick- The Web Browser is a tool resident on a cli- est possible way without having to navigate through ent computer for end users to interact with the several pages of information or menu options. system based on their access privileges. There are different browsers in use and the system The model above suggests that the core element of should be designed so as to be compatible with information is the Commodity. Commodities are nor- the prevailing browsers (e.g. Explorer, Firefox, mally classified using the Harmonized System (HS). Chrome). The HS Code that identifies a commodity is made 5.3  Data Model and Database Design up of 8 digits according to the following structure: In order to cater for the kind of queries described above the database needs to be designed to reflect Figure 2.  Information Relationship Model the relationship between the data entities. Commodity The diagram below (Fig. 2) represents, in a simpli- fied Entity Relationship notation,16 a generalized model of what data entities would be required to store the information and how they inter-relate. Tari The boxes represent ‘entities’, i.e. classes of in- formation which will need to be published on the Trade Information Portal. The generalized entity model can be used as the Products Measures Requirements basis for the database design. The model addresses the main classes of informa- Laws tion. A detailed analysis will reveal various other classes which can be used to enforce referential in- tegrity and to further enrich the data, e.g. country Standards codes, currency codes, activity codes (import, ex- Procedures port, transit), etc. The structure below is a generic suggestion. The specific circumstances in each country may result Forms in variations but the core elements should not be too dissimilar. The rationale for structuring these classes of infor- mation and for identifying their referential relation- In some countries, more than 8 digits may be used ship is in order to provide a quick path to aggre- for a commodity code in order to provide for coun- gating all the inter-related information following a try-specific sub-divisions of the commodity. specific query by a user of the website. A Tariff, i.e. the rate of duty applicable, is associated The relational nature of this conceptual model is with each commodity code. There may be more than such that it can provide a path to logically related in- one tariff associated with a commodity as a country 24 | Developing a Trade Information Portal Heading Chapter Sub-Chapter Sub-Heading Code Description XX Chapter Description XX XX Sub-Chapter Description XX XX XX Sub-Heading Description XX XX XX XX Commodity Description may apply a special rate of duty to countries that ciate any type of special instruction to a product or are parties to an FTA and another rate of duty to all a commodity, such as an obligation to clear certain other countries. The database design should allow goods at specific border posts, etc. for tariffs to be related to both imports and exports though, in practice, in most countries, most com- Measures and specific requirements are normally modities do not attract an export duty. enforced through a legal instrument such as a law, a decree, a regulation, etc. These are represented by A commodity code may encompass several Prod- the entity Laws. A legal instrument may apply to a ucts and these may be defined by international number of commodities or products. product codes (like in the case of pharmaceuticals) or, simply, by the manufacturer’s own product The entity Procedure represents the steps required identifier. to import or export goods, each step being an in- teraction between the trader and a government An importer wishing to import a certain product agency. The normal procedure for clearing goods may need to ensure that it complies with certain for import or export with Customs generally ap- technical Standards. These may be national stan- plies to all commodities according to the specific dards determined by a law or a regulation or they regime. However, commodities that are subject to may be recommended standards based on interna- specific measures or requirements may involve ad- tional standards which the importer may choose to ditional or different procedures which may need to comply with. Exporters may need to ensure that be followed with other government agencies, e.g. their products comply with certain standards if quarantine. these are mandatory in the destination country. In many developing countries where the processes A Measure is a specific restriction or prohibition that for obtaining permits and licenses or clearing goods applies to a commodity or to certain types of prod- have not yet been fully automated, there is usu- ucts. Typically a Measure could relate to sanitary or ally a reliance on paper forms to submit applica- phytosanitary regulations. In these cases, permits or tions for licenses and permits or declarations. Of- licenses may need to be obtained from the relevant ten, more than one form is required to complete a government agency prior to importing or exporting transaction. In the conceptual database design (Fig. the goods. 2), these are represented by the entity Forms and are associated with a specific procedure though it A Measure may also be a permanent prohibition is conceivable that the same form may be used in to import or export certain products (for example, more than one procedure. psychotropic drugs) or a temporary prohibition to enforce a quota or for other reasons. 5.4  Functional Architecture and Requirement is a generic term for any specific man- Content datory instructions for certain commodities or prod- ucts, e.g. the need to obtain an automatic or non-au- The Functional Architecture should define the struc- tomatic import license. In our conceptual database ture of the website in terms of the facilities that it design, the entity Requirements can be used to asso- provides, how the pages of information are struc- Development and Implementation  | 25 tured for viewing and the navigational features that About Us allow the users to reach the information they re- quire. This is a common page on many websites that is used to describe the organisation that is represented The content of the website is a matter for each coun- by the website, its mission and the purpose of the try to decide and will be specific to the particular website. circumstances of that country. However, below, is a list of potential topics and features that the website Site Map could offer. Many of them are standard features of modern websites. This is a list of the topics on the website organized hierarchically which allows user to find the desired topic quickly and, by clicking on the link, go straight 5.4.1  Standard Features to the relevant page. Language Selection Terms and Conditions In some countries it may be necessary to provide an This page would be used to publish any legal dis- option to view the website in the local language as claimers and the terms governing the use of infor- well as in other languages, such as English and/or mation published on the website. French, for the benefit of international users. In this case, one option would be for the top level landing FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to offer the choice of preferred language. This is a common feature of many information web- Once ‘inside’ a language there should be an option sites. The most common questions submitted by the on every page to switch to the other language/s by public are listed and categorized with the relevant clicking on a link. answer. Some CMS’s will have features that allow this page to be refreshed automatically with actual Technically, multi-language capabilities can be pro- queries submitted by the public. vided in different ways. For example, parallel data sets can be stored in the database or two or more separate databases can be maintained. The develop- Help ers’ preference will dictate the choice of technical approach. This page should provide explanations on how to use the various features of the website. It would be helpful if the Help topics were indexed. Home Page This is the ‘welcome’ entry page of the Trade In- Commonly Used Terms formation Portal. This page could give a general introduction about the website and brief guidance This is a helpful page that could provide an explana- on how to use it. This page would also have all the tion of various terms and acronyms used through- top level menu links to other pages on the website out the website. organized by topic. Contact us Many websites show on the Home page a list of recent news, announcements, forthcoming events Most information websites provide a page with and other topical information. Most CMS’s offer telephone numbers, physical addresses, maps and standard technology features that allow these lists where it is also possible to submit a question us- to be refreshed automatically every time a new ing a template form. Most CMS’s will provide stan- item is added. dard facilities to generate this kind of page. In our 26 | Developing a Trade Information Portal context, as the query could be directed to one of These could be the Agencies’ own websites, certain many different agencies, it would be helpful if the trade organizations (e.g. Chamber of Commerce) or contact form included a drop-down selection for the the websites of relevant international organizations, category of query so that the system can route it e.g. WTO, WCO, WHO, etc. automatically to the pertinent authority. A disclaimer, however, should be shown to the Many websites use a ‘Capcha’ in contact forms. effect that the Trade Information Portal is not re- ‘Capchas’ are computer generated codes that are sponsible for the content of these websites and not machine-readable but that are readable by a hu- that they are operated under different Terms and man. The user is asked to type the code he or she Conditions. sees into a field. This method is used to ensure that the query is submitted by a real person and not by an automated spam robot. 5.4.2  Periodic Features These are standard facilities that give topical informa- Feedback tion to the public as and when it becomes available. Many websites provide a form for capturing a feed- Many websites display the latest news items, an- back from the public about the website. Feedbacks nouncements or forthcoming events in discrete sec- are useful to analyze the reaction of the public to tions of the Home Page so that they are immediately the website and identify any areas of potential im- evident. From there it is then possible to drill down provement. to a full page to read more about the specific item or search for past items. The form may offer a set of questions with multiple choice answers selectable via radio buttons (e.g. Most CMS’s have built-in components that allow the “How did you find our website?”, “Did you find the generation of these dynamic features, such as: information you were looking for?”, “How do you rate our website?”, etc.) or it may simply provide a • News items about recent events, activities and, free text feedback form. generally, any topics of interest to the trading community One might consider making this form ‘pop up’ on • Announcements, e.g. a new law coming into a random basis to encourage a user to submit a force, a change in procedures, new SPS mea- feedback. sures, etc. • Calendar of Events, e.g. seminars, workshops, Website Search conferences, “open days”, etc. • Publications, e.g. e-bulletins, newsletters or Most websites provide a facility to search for key- PDF copies of brochures or other material words across all contents of the website. The results of the query should provide short-cut links to the relevant topic page. Most CMS’s provide built-in fa- 5.4.3  Trade Information Search Features cilities to search the contents of a website. Some de- gree of customization of this search facility may be These are the pages that should provide the regula- required as the search engine would have to search tory information required by traders in a compre- for data held in the database rather than just free- hensive and structured format. standing HTML text. The suggestions below are based on the assumption that the website will have, at its core, a database Other useful links where information relating to commodities, mea- sures, procedures, etc. is structured according to the It is normally good practice for a website to provide model described in Section 5.3 above. hyper-links to other websites of related interest. Development and Implementation  | 27 The rationale for the following facilities is to attempt, Once the trader has clicked on the commodity he having identified the way in which information in- or she requires, the system may display the tariff/s, ter-relates, to cover all the angles from which traders any special measures or requirements and any spe- may wish to reach the information they require. cific procedures applicable to that commodity, as in the example below. Search by Commodity In the screen below, the result of the query cross- references the law that relates to the specific re- This page would allow a user to select a commodity quirement to obtain an import license and the forms by HS Code, part of HS Code or by keywords in the that are to be used when following the required pro- commodity description. cedure. The trader can drill down and expand on this information by clicking on the links. The result of the query could be presented in a structured, dynamic format which allows traders to drill down to the specific commodity they require, as in the example below. Figure 3.  Result of structured query on Commodity table 28 | Developing a Trade Information Portal Figure 4.  Result of query on specific commodity Code 87013020—Of a cylinder capacity exceeding 1,100 cc Tariffs Displaying 1–2 of 2 result(s) Country Group Activity Tariff Rate Unit Valid From Valid To MFN Import 5.00 NMB 01-05-2010 31-12-2010 CEPT Import 0.00 NMB 01-01-2012 31-12-2012 Measures Displaying 1–1 of 1 result(s) Name Type Agency Description Comments Law Validity Requirement to Licensing Ministry of Road vehicle, For statistical Notification No. 0076 – Annex 31-12-9999 obtain automatic Requirement industry and except road purpose A List on Goods subject to import license – Commerce vehicle with Automatic and Non-automatic Road Vehicles three wheels Import Licensing (87.04.31) Procedures Displaying 1–1 of 1 result(s) Name Description Category View Procedure Detail with View Procedure Detail with Relevant Forms Relevant Commodities Application for Application Import View View Import License for Import License Search by Measure/Requirement measures and laws determine that it should be ap- plied or which forms are required in that procedure. Conversely, a trader may wish to look up a specific measure or special requirement (e.g. SPS) and find The system should produce a query result similar to out the commodities to which it applies and which the ones above. procedures, if any, are required to comply with that measure. In this case, the system should be able to It may be beneficial to present a procedure as a se- link to and present the necessary information (See ries of steps in an intuitive flowchart format (See Figure 5). Figure 6). The trader should then be able to ‘drill down’ on If the technology allows, it would be desirable to be related records (e.g. Law or Commodity) to expand able to click on a box to expand it with more infor- that information. mation or cross-link it to related information. For example, clicking on Application Form may open a Search by Procedure window where a PDF copy of the form is displayed or clicking on Proceed with Import may bring up the Yet again, a trader may wish to identify commodi- full Clearance for Import procedure. ties to which a specific procedure applies, which Development and Implementation  | 29 Figure 5.  Result of query on specific measure View Measure Name Requirement to obtain automatic import license – Road Vehicles Description Road vehicle, except road vehicle with three wheels (87.04.31) Comments For statistical purpose Validity From 13-01-2012 Validity To 31-12-9999 Reference Technical Code Agency Ministry of industry and Commerce Created Date 2012-02-09 14:30:17 Updated Date 2012-02-10 15:04:41 Status Active Measure Type Licensing Requirement Legal/Regulation Notification No. 0076 – Annex A List on Goods subject to Automatic and Non-automatic Import Licensing This measure applies to commodity/ies Displaying 1–10 of 180 result(s) HS Code Description 87012010 --CKD 87012090 -- Other 87013020 --Of a cylinder capacity exceeding 1,100 cc 87019011 ---Of a cylinder capacity not exceeding 1,100 cc 87019019 ---Of a cylinder capacity exceeding 1,100 cc--- Other 87019091 ---Of a cylinder capacity not exceeding 1,100 cc 87019099 ---Of a cylinder capacity exceeding 1,100 cc 87021011 ---Of a gross vehicle weight of less than 6 t 87021012 ---Of a gross vehicle weight of at least 6 t but not exceeding 18 t 87021013 ---Of a gross vehicle weight of at least 18 t but not exceeding 24 t Failing that, annotations at the bottom of the dia- pending on how the image was generated, the text in gram would also serve the purpose. the image may be searchable but, in many cases, it may not be. PDF is useful if a user wishes to down- Search Legal Documents load the document for printing or exchanging. How- ever, if the legal texts were simply stored in PDF for- mat it would not be possible in all cases to search for At the core of a Trade Information Portal should be keywords inside the text of to cross-reference specific a catalogue of all the laws, regulations, instructions, sections of the document from links in the website. notifications or other legal texts related to trade. It is therefore desirable to load the legal texts in the On many websites legal texts are stored in PDF for- database as HTML text so that all text is searchable mat. PDF is an image of an original document. De- 30 | Developing a Trade Information Portal Figure 6.  Example Procedure Flowchart This exercise, however, is highly recommended as it would allow reference to the law or to a specific ar- Check whether ticle of law to be made by means of a link from any- goods require where in the website where that reference is relevant. Import License It is recommended that an accurate catalogue of all the sources of legal texts is built with an assessment Draft Import of what it would take to convert each one into read- License Application using able format and that this estimate is factored into Application Form the man-effort required for the project. Application Form 5.4.4  General Trade Related Information (see sample) Company Tax As well as the structured information above, a Trade Incorporation Certi cate Certi cate Information Portal would benefit from having pages Present where the information about what a trader needs to application to Ministry do to import or export goods is presented in plain together with language and arranged logically by easily identifi- accompanying able topics. documents This could be organized with topics such as What Ministry will to do to Import Goods, What to do to Export Goods, check application and Pay Fee to What to do with Goods in Transit, When do I require will issue Import Cashier an Import License, etc. License This Guide does not try to be prescriptive in this respect. The content and style are very much a mat- Import ter for each country to decide. What is important, License though, is to offer traders the opportunity to dis- cover information following a logical, easy to under- stand narrative rather than having to search through different laws, decrees, etc. and having to piece the Proceed with information together by themselves. Import This may sound relatively easy. However, what it means is that information pertaining to different agencies has to be brought together in a logical continuum and this may present the same difficul- and anchors can be placed against each article or ties described earlier in the context of exchanging section so that it can be cross-referenced directly information between agencies. Often, agencies en- from other places in the website. force their own rules without regard to how they impact on the job of other agencies. Therefore, in By placing an anchor on each article it also becomes the sub-text of this subject, is the implication that possible to create an index at the front of the document. tying together a sequence of steps involving differ- ent agencies carries legal value (or at least a degree This is likely to be a laborious exercise as the sourc- of authority) by virtue of the fact that it is published es for these legal texts may not be in a very friendly on a government website. electronic format and may involve scanning with OCR,k conversion, indexing or, in the worst case scenario, typing the content in manually. k OCR: Optical Character Recognition Development and Implementation  | 31 Drafting these information pages will also require manner. However, these are “passive” facilities in a legal mandate for whoever does the drafting to that the public has to look for what they want to make statements that are in line with the laws and discover. with common practice. Modern technology allows the opportunity to cre- ate facilities that proactively address the informa- 5.4.5  SPS and TBT Pages tion needs of the public whilst allowing govern- ment to get close to traders to understand their The WTO’s SPS Agreement requires members to needs, monitor their reactions and behaviour and, publish all sanitary and phytosanitary regulations ultimately, offer them a better service tailored to promptly and to establish a point for submission of their needs. enquiries by other members.17 These facilities could be “value added” services Similarly, the TBT Agreement requires members to made available to those users who wish to open establish an enquiry point for technical standards18 a subscription to the website. The website would for a similar purpose. give an option, probably on the Home Page, to reg- ister as a subscriber. Normally, to register, the user Although not explicitly stated, WTO members tend would supply some details such as name, address, to fulfil this commitment by publicizing the enquiry type of business, etc. but these are not essential. points on a website. In many countries the location The minimum requirement is to supply an email and contact details of the enquiry points are pub- address which could also serve as the login ID and lished on the website of the government agency that a password which the user can select and change is tasked with operating the enquiry point. In a num- at will. ber of developing countries, however, there has been a tendency to create a website dedicated to the en- Possible value-added subscription services could be: quiry points (e.g. Ghana,19 Nepal20). There are proba- bly various reasons for this but one may be that there • Subscription to publications, news items, an- was no existing suitable website to publish them on. nouncements, notices of future events. If these items were categorized in the database (e.g. A country that is implementing a Trade Information Customs News, SPS News, etc.) subscribers Portal and that is also in the process of establishing could pick which categories of information SPS and TBT enquiry points may take the opportu- they are interested in and the system could nity to create pages on the Trade Information Portal send them an email or SMS alert every time to fulfil this commitment given that the website is such an item is newly added to the website. also the place where all measures would have to • A “Follow” facility that would allow subscrib- be published. It should also be possible to submit ers to bookmark specific commodities that enquiries directly to the enquiry points using the interest them and receive an alert every time website’s contact form facilities. something is added to that commodity or something changes, e.g. a new measure or the The enquiry point pages could also be the spring- expiry of a measure, a new regulation, etc. board for more information about sanitary/phytosan- • The website could send out, from time to time, itary matters and technical standards, including links questionnaires or surveys to subscribers to to relevant international organizations, and the news elicit their opinion about various issues. One and announcements facilities could be used effective- possible use for this feature is to conduct pub- ly to disseminate SPS and TBT specific information. lic consultations prior to a new law being in- troduced. 5.4.6  Special Features All the facilities described above are aimed at giving information to the public in a transparent and clear 32 | Developing a Trade Information Portal 5.4.7  Website Management Features tors such as the number of pages a user has dwelled on, how long was spent on each page, which search- Like every IT system a Trade Information Portal will es were carried out, etc. Analytical tools can also require administration and maintenance facilities. identify from the IP address the location of a visitor The system should therefore cater for administrator and can therefore provide statistics about where the level functions to allow for code and data updates, users are located anywhere in the world. Usually, user management, diagnostics, etc. these tools provide a “dashboard” where informa- tion is presented in various graphic formats. In a more specific context, however, the system should provide facilities to monitor and analyze These analytical tools are valuable instruments for usage. There are many web usage analytical tools monitoring and understanding the public’s behav- available (e.g. Google Analytics) that can be bolted iour and preferences as well as extrapolating vari- onto the website or the hosting service may provide ous indicators such as geographical usage, most one of its own. used information, etc. However, in order to obtain more qualitative information about the public’s per- Website analytical tools collect information about the ception of the website and its usefulness, more tar- “hits” on the website and extrapolate various indica- geted strategies are required (see Section 7 below). Key Recommendations • Develop a detailed Implementation Plan to ensure that the Steering Committee has a full understanding of the scope of the project, the features and contents of the website and the human resource effort and cost required to build it • The Implementation Plan should be built following good practice in ICT projects and should comprise a Project Plan, System Architecture, Database Design Specifications and Functional Architecture • Develop the Project Plan according to good practice in project management comprising a detailed task list, assigned responsibilities, milestones, resource allocation and quality attributes for each task • A clear plan should be in place for how the information is going to be collected and loaded onto the website and what resources will be required, comprising, if possible, personnel seconded from the stakeholder Agencies • Update the Risk Register to the detailed level reflected by the Project Plan and monitor the risks constantly ready to activate avoidance or mitigation strategies 6 Operation 6.1  Policies and Procedures • The method for vetting the information before being published and being approved by man- Like every ICT operation, the on-going functioning of agement. In this respect, it is advisable that the the Trade Information Portal should be governed by a information should be uploaded to the local set of good practice policies and procedures covering development and testing environment so that hardware and system maintenance, security, disaster it can be vetted and approved before uploading recovery, etc. The Project Team should develop a Pol- it to the live environment. icies and Procedures Manual to cover these topics. • The method by which queries submitted to the website by the public are routed to each In a more specific sense, a set of policies and proce- agency and how these will be dealt with. In dures should be put in place to ensure that informa- this respect it would be useful if the website tion on the Trade Information Portal is always kept had facilities to monitor the progress of que- up-to-date with recent changes and new items of ries that have been received and a mechanism interest to the public. was put in place for the Agencies to commu- nicate to the Trade Portal Management Team This will require the legal basis described in Section their internal progress with handling a query. 3.3 above but the mechanisms for how this is going This can be catered for by the Agencies agree- to function need to be codified. In this respect, the ing to use collaborative workflow manage- Policies and Procedures Manual should comprise: ment software or specialist Help Desk soft- ware. This would be a useful feature in mea- • A definition of what constitutes an item of suring the effectiveness of the website as shall information that should be published on the be discussed in Section 7 below. website, e.g. a piece of news, an announce- • Roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of ment by an agency, a new publication, a new the parties involved in the operation and main- draft of a law, a new regulation, a change of tenance of the website. procedure, a new SPS measure, etc. • Guidelines about the timeliness of publishing such information • The method by which such information is Key Recommendations communicated to the Trade Portal Manage- • Implement good practice ICT policies and procedures for the ment Team, e.g. by email, by official letter, etc. operation of the Trade Information Portal It is conceivable that, in time, agencies may be • Develop a set of policies and procedures to ensure that the portal able, with suitable training, to upload this in- is always kept up to date with new information formation directly to the website. 7 Measuring the Effectiveness of the Trade Information Portal The effectiveness of a Trade Information Portal good degree”, “Greatly” can be fed into a statistical should be measured in terms of the degree of facili- model that can extrapolate trends. tation that access to transparent and accurate regu- latory information would offer trade practitioners. The usage monitoring tools can be used to extract However, measuring the effectiveness of Trade Fa- statistical trends. A steady increase in the number cilitation in terms of the direct and indirect savings of hits and time dwelled on the website would prob- to trade in transaction costs is a notoriously com- ably be a good indicator of the increased reliance by plex endeavour which involves taking into account the public on the website. many factors other than the regulatory environ- ment, e.g. the supply chain environment, the usage The number of queries submitted via the website of e-business, etc., that are tightly inter-related. To and a feedback about the usefulness of the replies quote an UNCTAD report on Trade Facilitation: “The could be analyzed against a benchmark of the num- experts agreed that quantification of the benefits of ber of queries handled by an agency prior to the comprehensive trade facilitation programmes was website. This benchmark, however, may be difficult an extremely difficult task”.21 to establish because, in an environment where most transactions with agencies are carried out face-to- Attempts have been made to measure the benefits face, the enquiry to discover information is wrapped of trade facilitation where ‘transparency’ of the reg- up in the process of carrying out the transaction ulatory environment is given a measurable value over the counter. Nonetheless, over time, it may as part of an overall formula (see Wilson, Mann, possible to measure, both from the client’s side and Otsuki22). However, publishing regulations and in- the agencies’ side, the length of time it takes to com- formation on a portal is only a part of transparency. plete a transaction. If this time decreases, it could be How those regulations are interpreted or applied in an indication that transactions require less explana- practice during an actual transaction is also a factor. tion or are less likely to be subject to mistakes. Nonetheless, models like the WCO’s Time Release Ultimately, trade facilitation is what trade practitio- Study (TRS) could be used to extrapolate the effec- ners perceive it to be. Therefore, the agency in charge tiveness of a Trade Information Portal if carried out of the Trade Information Portal should endeavour to as a comparison on a before and after basis. It is sound out public opinion in whichever possible way. important, however, to ensure it measures the effec- For example, the agency could consider holding reg- tiveness of the entire import/export cycle including ular seminars or training workshops on how to make interactions with various other agencies prior to the best use of the website and use these opportunities goods arriving at the border. to invite comments from the public. That said, it should be possible to use various meth- ods to try and gauge the effectiveness of the Trade Key Recommendations Information Portal. For example, the Feedback fea- Despite the recognized difficulties in measuring trade facilitation, ture can be used to send out targeted questionnaires adopt a proactive approach towards attempting to measure the to the public in order to try and quantify the degree success of the Trade Information Portal in terms of the degree of of facilitation offered. Questions such as “To what facilitation that it offers to trade practitioners. Utilize the technology extent has the Trade Information Portal saved you to elicit comments and reaction from trade practitioners and enter time in obtaining information?” with a choice of an- into frequent consultation to gauge public opinion. swers such as “Not at all”, “To some degree”, “To a 8 The Trade Information Portal and the Single Window The concepts of Trade Information Portal and Single From this, it follows that all aspects of the Single Window are often mentioned in the same breath. It Window, from system design to security features, is true that there is a conceptual thread running governance model and operational model, must between the two in that they are both aimed at take into account the rights and liabilities involved trade facilitation by providing a single access point in a legally binding transaction and these should be to trade practitioners. However, in the case of the enshrined in a SLA or similar instrument between Trade Information Portal the single access point the provider and the clients. What should also be re- to is to facilitate access to information whereas, membered is that whoever operates the Single Win- in the case of the Single Window, the single ac- dow facility is not only providing a service to the cess point should be, under the UN/CEFACT defini- public but also a service to all the government agen- tion, “a facility that allows parties involved in trade cies involved and, if the provider is a Lead Agency, and transport to lodge standardized information this means that a SLA must also be in place between and documents with a single entry point to fulfill that agency and the other government stakeholders. all import, export, and transit-related regulatory re- quirements”23 which, these days, is taken to mean There is, however, merit in viewing the Single Win- a facility that does so as an electronic platform for dow as part of an incremental trade facilitation con- submitting and exchanging messages. tinuum that starts with the Trade Information Por- tal (assuming that this is implemented before the In practice, the two facilities require a different tech- Single Window) establishing the concept of a single nical architecture, governance model and, most im- access point to interact with government. After all, portantly, legal basis. discovering information is the first step on the way to actually transacting the business and one could The Trade Information Portal deals with infor- visualize the situation where a trader goes from mation which should be openly available in the “how do I do this?” to “now let’s do it” in one go. public domain and does not involve any transac- tions between trade practitioners and government. A practical example of this would be a trader wish- Therefore, the issue of data protection is not of ing to import a commodity which may, from time high concern, as discussed in Section 4.4.9 above. to time, be subject to SPS measures. The first step By contrast, the Single Window deals with transac- would be to find out whether any measures are in tions between the public and various government place at the moment. The trader would therefore agencies that carry the legal value of a declaration look up the commodity on the Trade Information and that could be used as evidence. Furthermore, Portal (as illustrated by the example in Section 5.4.3 these transactions carry commercially confidential above) and would discover that a specific permit data. In order to establish a Single Window it is needs to be obtained from the relevant agency be- therefore necessary to have a solid foundation in fore embarking on the importation. data protection and e-commerce law for which UNCITRAL provides a good generic model.24 Fur- At this point, if there were a shared link between the thermore, the Single Window, depending on its Trade Information Portal and the Single Window, functional design, may require additional legisla- the system could link together the steps required to tion to enable data submitted to one agency as a discharge this obligation based on the enquiry that single submission to be shared by and have legal the trader has just submitted and present a work- value across different agencies. flow to the trader that will enable him or her to 38 | Developing a Trade Information Portal submit the necessary applications electronically to success of both. The management structure, legal the relevant agency/s via the Single Window with- basis and mechanisms established to implement out having to log out, re-log in on a different system and manage the Trade Information Portal on an on- and re-submit the same information. Furthermore, going basis could easily be the foundation for the the tariff tables held on the Trade Information Portal governance model of the Single Window and would could be used by the Single Window as the basis for make the model described above more attainable. the calculation of duties once the trader reaches the point where a Customs declaration can be lodged. Key Recommendations Clearly this model would require an intersection of • Whilst a Trade Information Portal and a Single Window may be technologies which should ideally be factored into seen as separate projects requiring different legal, operational, the fundamental design of the systems at the on- technical and governance models, there are benefits to be setl as well as operational arrangements which span derived from taking a holistic view of both and planning for this different environments and this may not be practi- at the onset. cal in specific countries depending on local legacies • Certain technology features can be shared to provide the user with or institutional constraints. It is, however, a model a seamless and simplified process covering both the provision of which is worth considering in countries where the information and the electronic submission of required data. conditions exist for a blue sky approach. • The governance model for a Trade Information Portal, which is Perhaps the most important issue of relevance to geared to enable inter-agency collaboration, could provide the the relationship between a Trade Information Portal foundation for the governance model of a Single Window. and Single Window is the fact that, if one is under- taken before the other, it establishes a model for in- ter-agency collaboration and collective governance l Technically, this could be a web service call on a SOA which is a common and essential prerequisite to the platform and would require Single Sign-On 9 Acronyms and Abbreviations Acronym Description Acronym Description B2B Business to Business OCR Optical Character Recognition CMS Content Management System PDF Portable Document Format DBMS Database Management System PRINCE2 Projects in a Controlled Environment DNS Domain Name System SLA Service Level Agreement FAQ Frequently Asked Questions SMS Short Message Service GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade SOA Service Oriented Architecture HMRC UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs SPS Sanitary and Phytosanitary HS Harmonized System TBT Technical Barriers to Trade HTML Hyper-Text Mark-up Language TRS Time Release Study ICT Information and Communications Technology UNCITRAL United Nations Commission on International IIS Internet Information Services Trade Law IP Internet Protocol URL Unique Resource Locator IS Information Systems WCO World Customs Organization IT Information Technology WHO World Health Organization MOU Memorandum of Understanding WTO World Trade Organization 10 References 1 GATT 1947 and 1994, Article X, WTO tions on Database Systems, Vol. 1, No. I, March 1976, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2 http://www.iesingapore.gov.sg/wps/portal http://csc.lsu.edu/news/erd.pdf 3 http://www.nzte.govt.nz/Pages/default.aspx 17 GATT 1994, Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Annex B, 4 http://nortrade.com WTO 5 http://www.thaitrade.com/home 18 GATT 1994, Agreement on Technical Barriers to 6 http://www.srilankabusiness.com/ Trade, Article 10, WTO 7 http://www.tradeportalofindia.com 19 http://www.sps-tbt-ghana.org/ 8 http://www.tradeindia.com/ 20 http://www.spsenquiry.gov.np/ 9 http://www.legislation.govt.nz/ 21 Report of The Expert Meeting on Efficient Trans- port and Trade Facilitation to Improve Partici- 10 W3Techs, Usage of Content Management Sys- pation by Developing Countries in International tems for Websites, http://w3techs.com/technol- Trade: Problems and Potential for the Applica- ogies/overview/content_management/all tion of Current Trade Facilitation Measures by Developing Countries, UNCTAD, Decem- 11 UKTradeInfo ,https://www.uktradeinfo.com/ ber 2002, http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ index.cfm?task=terms, HMRC c3em17d3_en.pdf 12 PRINCE2, Projects In a Controlled Environment, 22 Wilson J S, Mann C L, Otsuki T, Trade Fa- HM Government, http://www.prince-official- cilitation and Economic Development: Mea- site.com/ suring the Impact, World Bank Policy Re- 13 W3Techs, Usage of Operating Systems for Websites, search Working Paper 2988, March 2003, http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/ /operating_system/all default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2003/ 04/11/000094946_03040104075221/addition- 14 W3Techs, Usage of Web Servers for Websites, al/126526322_20041117164059.pdf http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/ web_server/all 23 UN/CEFACT Recommendation No. 33, Recom- mendation and Guidelines on Establishing a 15 W3Techs, Usage of Server-side Programming Single Window, UN, 2005 Languages for Websites, http://w3techs.com/tech- nologies/overview/programming_language/all 24 UNCITRAL, Model Law on Electronic Commerce with Guide to Enactment, 1996, United Nations, 16 Chen, P P, The Entity Relationship Model – To- New York, 1999 wards a Unified View of Data, ACM Transac- THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433