Western Balkans Trade and Transport Facilitation Project

Start & End Date: 2017-Ongoing

Country/Countries: Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia

Multilateral Institution(s) Involved: World Bank

Case Study: Available

The six Western Balkan (WB6) countries face a common set of challenges: how to restructure inefficient and often state-heavy economies to foster growth, productivity, and bolster the creation of private sector quality jobs in societies where too many people remain unemployed. The six countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Trade and transport facilitation are key elements of WB6’s efforts to deepening economic integration in the region and the EU. The WB6 countries are committed to this agenda with a clear EU accession perspective and integration into the multilateral trading system.

The World Bank has prepared a multi-phase project, the Western Balkans Trade and Transport Facilitation Project, which will be carried out in two phases. Phase 1 includes Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia. Phase 2 includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro. One key component of the project involves the adoption and implementation of a National Single Window (NSW) solution. While the countries are familiar with the concept of NSW, they require more assistance in understanding the process of implementing the NSW and how ready their agencies are in implementing it. The activities supported by the Umbrella Facility for Trade are National Single Window Visioning workshops, and country specific Single Window Gap Analysis assessments which lay the preparatory foundation for the NSW implementation. The aim of the Western Balkans Trade and Transport Facilitation project is to reduce trade costs transport efficiency in the Western Balkans. The indicators that will be measured are total trade cost (sum of countries’ cumulative import and export cost), cost to import and export, and average freight transport time on targeted corridors. The analysis study is the first step in that direction, considering the significant impact trade facilitation reforms have on countries’ GDP, trade flows and welfare.

The expected results of the project are a reduction in trade, import, export and average freight transport times.