USAID’s Trade Central Asia

OVERVIEW

The goal of USAID’s Trade Central Asia (TCA) Activity is to improve region-wide trade connectivity to accelerate economic growth and increase economic opportunity in Central Asia through harmonization of customs and border procedures, increasing public-private dialogue on trade and investment, improving cross-border firm-to-firm connectivity, strengthening resilience of Central Asian economies through trade, and addressing gender-relevant trade issues. USAID’s Trade Central Asia activity supports women traders and businesses in the region by reviewing current trade policies and practices for bias against women and designing activities to help women overcome these challenges.

USAID’s TCA Activity applies a facilitative approach, incentivizing public and private sector stakeholders to implement reforms and achieve activity objectives at the regional and national levels. The assistance is provided around four objectives:

RESULTS TO DATE

Objective 1: Customs and Border Procedures Harmonized

The activity has begun developing a Central Asian agreement on exchanging pre-arrival information, which will help Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan benefit from simplified regional trade.

The activity has strengthened bilateral customs cooperation and simplified intranational customs procedures between the Kyrgyz Republic and Türkiye.

The activity has helped Turkmenistan digitalize business processes through applying the Electronic Consignment Note information technology (IT) solution. A key result is joining the Additional Protocol to the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road concerning the Electronic Consignment Note (eCMR).

The activity has supported the Government of Uzbekistan in undertaking a Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluation process, which will be a basis of recommendations for reforms.

The activity continues supporting Uzbekistan’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession process.

Objective 2: Public-private Dialogue on Regional Trade and Investment Increased

USAID has continued supporting regional trade dialogue by hosting the 12th Central Asia Trade Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan on October 12-13, 2022, on the theme of digitalizing customs services.

The activity has trained members of 100 private sector associations on engaging government stakeholders in dialogue on trade issues.

The activity has supported the Kyrgyz Republic Government’s use of navigation seals to track goods movement at the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border.

Objective 3: Cross-Border Firm-to-Firm Connectivity Increased

The activity co-hosted the annual BactriaFood International Export Forum in the nation’s Khatlon region in May 2022.

The activity has helped Central Asia’s SMEs improve their export capacity by engaging local consultants through the Trade Promotion Service Providers (TPSP) initiative.

Objective 4: Resilience of Central Asian Economies Strengthened Through Trade

The activity is promoting use of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) by Central Asian exporters, helping increase trade of goods through Kazakhstan’s Caspian seaports, and diversify exports to European Union (EU) and Turkish markets.

Women’s Economic Empowerment

The activity supported the opening Women in Logistics and Transport (WiLAT) association offices in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
In partnership with the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the activity has helped ten women artisans attend the CreativeWorld trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany.
The activity hosted a second annual Regional Women’s Summit in Uzbekistan in September 2022.