FACILITATING TRANSIT OF LANDLOCKED COUNTRIES

States News Service
June 27, 2008 Friday

The following information was released by the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development:

A "landlocked country" is defined in the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea as a State that has no sea coast. In practical
terms, landlocked countries are located in the interior of continents,
hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from maritime ports. According
to United Nations definitions, there are 31 landlocked developing
countries in the world:

Africa: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic,
Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Swaziland,
Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe;

Asia: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s
Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan;

Europe: Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia;

Latin America: Bolivia and Paraguay.

There is no official United Nations category of either "transit
countries" or "transit developing countries". The commonly
accepted term was generated by the United Nations Office of the High
Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing
Countries and Small Island Developing Status in 2004, under the heading
"transit countries". It excludes all developed transit countries
as well as such developing countries as Mongolia, Afghanistan and
several Central Asian countries that are both landlocked countries
and important transit links.

Considering the general transport and transit challenges in many
developing countries, cooperation between the landlocked developing
countries and their transit neighboring countries in the field of
transit trade raises complex economic, trade and legal issues that
require concerted interactions to find mutually acceptable solutions,
often supported by international cooperation agencies.

On the one hand – despite some positive developments in transit
transport systems – high transit costs and non-tariff transit barriers
continue to impose serious constraints for landlocked countries
transporting goods to the nearest viable sea ports, thus negatively
impacting the overall socio-economic development of landlocked
developing countries. As a result, these countries have often not been
able to take full benefit of the new trade and investment opportunities
offered by the process of liberalization and globalization.

On the other hand, transit countries are often themselves developing
countries, or even least developed countries, facing serious
economic problems, including the lack of adequate transit transport
infrastructure. Therefore, transit countries need to understand the
benefits of transit through their countries and often need incentives
to facilitate transit transport.

In this context, UNCTAD has, in the period 2005-2007, led a United
Nations Development Account Project aiming at facilitating transit
transport cooperation along three regional transit corridors
between the following countries: Zambia-Namibia, Laos-Thailand
and Paraguay-Uruguay. By bringing together clusters of users,
government agencies and service providers, it was able to develop
practical solutions. Developing trust and a sense of ownership among
the different actors was important for reducing bottlenecks in the
physical and procedural chains.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress