Background and Principles
GMS member countries are making efforts to make cross-border movement of goods and services faster, easier, cheaper, more compliant with regulations, and more comprehensive. Over the past decade, the road network in the Greater Mekong Subregion has expanded to nearly 200,000 kilometers, and overland freight transport has almost doubled. However, regulatory barriers persist. Therefore, the Transport and Trade Facilitation Working Group focuses on improving regulations, rules, agreements, and software to facilitate cross-border movement of goods and services within the GMS as required.
While the GMS Strategy 2030 has focused on trade facilitation, customs modernization, establishing sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, strengthening private sector connectivity, and supporting the development of e-commerce platforms in the subregion, investment facilitation aims to create a new environment for subregional development. There are projects that help expand transport and traffic rights under the GMS Cross-Border Transport Agreement (CBTA), simplify and improve customs procedures, and modernize border management, strengthen the capacity of sanitary and phytosanitary agencies in the subregion, and GMS Transport Ministers have agreed to establish a Memorandum of Understanding for Early Harvest tariff reductions on certain goods.
Recent Progress
GMS member countries have jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding to extend Protocol 1 of the Cross-Border Transport Agreement in the Greater Mekong Subregion (CBTA), which adds new routes, border crossing points, and opens important transport corridor routes, including routes to areas in Guangxi and Yunnan, China, via Vietnam. Additionally, it is expected that the first phase of CBTA will be relaunched along with an extension of the validity period of this first phase CBTA agreement.
