E-READINESS ASSESSMENT FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TRADE SINGLE WINDOW

It is necessary for a country to adapt new technologies and to have a strong link with the globalnetworks, in order to secure its position in the international economy. The economical prosperity of acountry extremely depends on its international communication and trade. Trade single window is afacilitation system enables international traders to submit required documents, such as declarations,permit applications and other supporting documents at a single entity. Utilizing the informationtechnology, trade single window became an efficient and reliable alternative in cross-border trade.Therefore, it is very important for a country to have all requirements in place, in order to gain the mostfrom implementing trade single window.Electronic readiness (e-readiness) is a measure of the ability of a country to utilize information andcommunication technology to develop the economy. Based on an extensive literature review, we havedeveloped an assessment framework to evaluate the country readiness to implement trade single window. The proposed framework can help to guide decision makers to recognize the requirements for the adoption of trade single window. There are many influencing factors which determine how ready a country to implement trade single window. The proposed framework can also help the decision makers to set action plans for future direction in the investment in infrastructure required for the implementation of single window.

Keywords:

Single window , assessment , UN/CEFACT , e-readiness