Summary
The aim of this UNCTAD XII pre-event was to examine the most suitable ways for developing countries to meet the challenges and opportunities that the globalization of logistics may pose to their national trade and investment policies, in the light of recent trends in international maritime transport and developments in sea, river and inland terminals.
The meeting benefited from the presence of a large number of representatives of the maritime transport and logistics industry, including port operators, shipping lines, logistics companies, international terminal operators, port and logistics consultants, and UNCTAD and World Trade Organization experts. The morning session addressed recent developments in port logistics; the afternoon session looked at policy issues.
Experts at the meeting underlined the importance of:
- Coherent policies whereby transport and port development are seen as part of trade and industrial and regional development policies, which create employment and value added services, and promote trade
- Private sector involvement through public-private partnerships or other mechanisms
- Appropriate regulatory framework and know-how
- Appropriate facilitation measures
The need for integrating port and transport logistics into coherent trade-based development policies is also one of the underlying considerations of UNCTAD´s work on trade logistics carried out in the Trade Logistics Branch of the Division for Services Infrastructure for Development and Trade Efficiency. Its immediate objective is to create an enabling environment for transport, logistics and trade facilitation, to play its role as catalyst of trade and development of developing countries.
The pre-event reconfirmed this approach and provided for a set of imminent recommendations to be transmitted to the preparatory process of UNCTAD XII.