Time Release Study (TRS) for the North-South corridor presented in Harare

On 7th February 2025 the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) officially presented a Time Release Study (TRS) that analyses the main trade barriers along the North-South Corridor, a main import and export route connecting Southern Africa to parts of East and Central Africa. The study assesses the average time taken for the clearance of goods at the Durban port (where this route starts), as well as at the various border posts crossed by this corridor, including at Kasumbalesa, Beitbridge and Chirundu.

Time Release Studies (TRS) are a trade facilitation tool used to identify bottlenecks, delays and constraints in clearance processes caused by Customs and other regulatory agencies with responsibility for cross-border trade. The purpose of such studies is to provide these authorities with information and data useful to develop appropriate actions for addressing barriers to trade. Typically, TRS are conducted at national level to assess the efficiency of clearance processes at specific points of entry or exit of goods, such as ports, airports and land borders. However, cases where they are conducted jointly between two States (bilaterally), or between more than two States (regionally), or even in reference to particular inter-State corridors, are not uncommon. More recently, some African countries – especially in Southern Africa - have started to conduct, based on a methodology developed by the World Bank, so-called TRS-plus (or TRS+) studies that adopt an extended approach for the measurement of bottlenecks, as they also assess the impact of regulatory processes that are carried out “away from the border” (ex. time for obtaining licences and permits for import or export that are issued by the various government agencies). The first TRS+ were adopted by Eswatini and Zambia. The Horn of Africa Initiative trade facilitation roadmap also indicates TRS as a key measure needed to assess trade barriers along corridors in the Horn of Africa region, one of the African regions with the lowest levels of intra-regional trade.

In Africa, the East African Community (EAC) was among the first Regional Economic Communities to adopt a regional TRS. In 2013-2014, two TRSs were launched to assess bottlenecks along the Northern Corridor (a key transport route connecting the landlocked countries of the Great Lakes Region with the Kenyan maritime seaport of Mombasa) and the Central Corridor, from Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania) to Kigali (Rwanda) and Bujumbura (Burundi). This was followed in 2016 by another TRS assessing bottlenecks along the Northern Corridor, this time developed under the coordination of the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Co-ordination Authority (NCTTCA) Secretariat. In 2016, also the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) launched a pilot regional TRS along the Trans Kalahari Corridor to analyse bottlenecks to clearance of goods moved between Botswana and Namibia. 2016 was also the year when COMESA, with the support of the African Development Bank, conducted a regional TRS covering a wide number of border posts in 10 of its member States.

TRS are one of the measures recommended by the Trade Facilitation Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), that at article 7.6 encourages WTO members to measure and publish their average release time of goods periodically and in a consistent manner. In developing such studies, WTO members are urged by article 7.6 to use appropriate tools such as the one developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO), that has published detailed Guidelines for their preparation. Annex 4 to the Protocol on Trade in Goods of the AfCFTA Agreement mirrors this provision, giving the possibility to each AfCFTA Party to craft such studies in accordance with its needs and capacity.

Speaking at the presentation of the Time Release Study Report North-South Trade Corridor in Harare, Zimbabwe, the SADC representative highlighted the importance of eliminating cross-border barriers as a key step for increasing intra-SADC trade that, reportedly, stands at 23 percent. The cost of doing business at the ports and border posts in the region, according to SADC, has not reduced much because bottlenecks, cumbersome procedures, disharmonized procedure, uncoordinated operations, silos among border agencies, inadequate infrastructure and non-tariff barriers of different nature are still common.

Although not yet publicly available, the TRS indicates the presence of multiple agencies at the border posts, the existence of various charges imposed by these authorities that increase trade and transportation costs for economic operators, and lengthy border procedures among the major bottlenecks that cause delays to trade along the North-South corridor. The study is expected (hopefully) to help eliminate them. The development of TRS to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of clearing goods at border posts of the SADC Member States is one of the main actions and areas of focus of the SADC Corporate Plan 2022/23.