UNCTAD is launching a new Web-based version of its customs automation system, SYDONIA, which will allow customs administrators and traders to handle most of their transactions - from customs declarations to cargo manifests and transit documents - via the Internet.
The new e-customs platform, dubbed AsycudaWorld, will be particularly useful to developing countries, where poor fixed-line telecommunications are a major problem for e-government applications. But it is powerful enough to accommodate the operational and managerial needs of customs operations in any developed country as well. AsycudaWorld will mean even greater tax revenue collection and lower transaction costs than are already provided by the current version of the system, ASYCUDA++, making it a showcase for e-government. A secondary benefit is its effectiveness in combating fraud, corruption and illicit trafficking, as it gives customs authorities in different countries their first-ever tool for working together online.
The platform is based on a sophisticated technical architecture that does away with the need to maintain permanent connections with a national server - something that is especially important for countries with unreliable telecommunications. Where telecommunications are more reliable, the traditional Web approach can be used.
AsycudaWorld can work with all major database management systems (including Oracle, Sybase, DB2, Informix, SQLServer, etc.) and most operating systems, such as Linux, Windows and Solaris. The choices of software and hardware suppliers are left entirely to user countries. The platform´s use of XML (extensible mark-up language) will allow for the exchange of any document inside and outside the system, between customs administrations and traders and between customs administrations in different countries. It is "Java-native", meaning that it was designed as an open standard to be used with Java and that countries can thus modify or extend the application without requesting assistance from UNCTAD. And it will be fully compatible with ASYCUDA++, ensuring a smooth transition to e-customs for user countries. AsycudaWorld will continue to use all relevant international standards, both present and future.
ASYCUDA handles every step in the customs process, from pinpointing high-risk consignments for inspection to processing payments. The system is currently used to process an average of 15 million customs declarations in about half the world´s developing and transition economies each year, saving their customs administrations and traders some 50 million work hours annually, according to UNCTAD estimates. Increases in customs revenue of between 20% and 30% are not uncommon following implementation of an ASYCUDA project, one reason being that it makes it easier for agents to keep abreast of, and thus enforce, frequently changing customs tariffs and regulations. Other savings are generated by the reduced investment required to develop an automated customs administration system: ASYCUDA typically costs less than $2 million, while countries developing their own systems have sometimes paid up to $20 million before finally turning to ASYCUDA for a solution that worked.
AsycudaWorld is the latest result of a process that began when UNCTAD identified the first signs of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web. UNCTAD´s Trade Efficiency Summit (Columbus, Ohio, 1994) looked at how to reduce transaction costs by applying information technologies to every link of the trade transaction chain. At the time, the potential annual cost savings were estimated at up to $100 billion.
The $100 billion target remains elusive, but an initiative launched by the G-7 was based on the belief that it was nonetheless achievable, as long as customs data requirements can be harmonized and simplified. That objective is now being pursued by the Brussels-based World Customs Organization, which is developing a global, harmonized standard data set that uses uniform electronic messages. The WCO Customs Data Model, as it is called, is likely to have a dramatic effect on the processing of business-to-business, business-to-government and government-to-government transactions. These developments, combined with the fact that 85 countries around the world are already using the same customs IT system, ASYCUDA, represent a formidable opportunity for using the Internet to make international trade simpler and cheaper while also making international markets more accessible to enterprises from developing countries.
AsycudaWorld builds on the successful experiences of ASYCUDA++, which was designed to bypass difficult telecommunications environments by operating through GSM networks that are already widespread in developing countries. Traders uploading their documents through direct connections to servers or through the Internet get good response time using a plain GSM mobile phone modem working at 9600 baud. AsycudaWorld will also exploit the potential of mobile Internet access devices.
The ASYCUDA programme was created 20 years ago to automate the customs administrations of small developing countries. It has become the leading customs reform programme and is among the world´s most powerful customs automation systems.
ASYCUDA, a purely demand-driven programme, is financed entirely by beneficiary countries, either from their own national budgets or through loans or grants, and does not require any subsidy from the UN regular budget.
