TT in bottom 10 of illicit trade index

TRINIDAD and Tobago has been ranked in the bottom ten on an international index which ranks how countries address illicit trade.

The Global Illicit Trade Environment Index 2018, which was produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade, ranked TT 75th out of 84 countries. The index is a measure of the extent to which economies enable (or inhibit) illicit trade through their policies and initiatives to combat illicit trade. It is built around four main categories: government policy, supply and demand, transparency and trade, and the customs environment.

Topping the annual list was Finland with a score of 85.6 out of 100 beating the United Kingdom by only 0.5 points. The rest of the top 10 were Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, United States, Australia and New Zealand. The report said at the bottom of the overall index was a group of developing economies from all regions of the globe. TT was 75th with a score of 38.0 followed by Ukraine, Belize, Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, Cambodia, Venezuela, Laos, Myanmar, Iraq and Libya at the bottom with a score of 8.6.

This country ranked 17th out of 19 countries in the Americas while fellow Caribbean countries Jamaica and Dominican Republic ranked 14th and 16th respectively.

On the four categories TT ranked better overall for government policy (72nd), supply and demand (67th) and transparency and trade (61st) but ranked worse in customs environment (79th). The customs environment category measures how effectively an economy’s customs service manages its dual mandate to facilitate illicit trade while also preventing illicit trade. It consists of five indicators: percentage of shipments physically inspected; the time taken for customs clearance and inspection, the extent of automation of border procedures, the presence of Authorised Economic Operator programmes and the presence of customs recordal systems.