During the national seminar, where the representatives of the state sector, international organizations and projects, implemented in Turkmenistan took part, the issues on execution of the Trade Portal project in Turkmenistan. The seminar was held by the International Trade Centre (ITC) within the framework of Ready4Trade Central Asia funded by the European Union (EU).

The initiative on establishing a Trade Portal, which is now on the stage of development, is being implemented jointly with the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of Turkmenistan. This digital resource is called to simplify trade procedures in the country for all participants of export-import operations.

During the seminar, information on the functionality of the Trade Portal, the results of primary data collection for its filling were presented, issues related to the verification and certification of corresponding documents and information which will be used at the Portal were discussed.

In the process of this work, the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of Turkmenistan, with the support of ITC consultants, cooperates also with other national agencies, participating in the regulation of cross-border trade.

After the Portal development and the completion of the Ready4Trade project, the hosting of this resource will be fully transferred to the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of the country, which will administer it on their own.

Bayram Durdyev, a representative of the Ministry noted:

“It is expected that the Trade Portal will be an important tool for the private sector, as well as representatives of small and medium-sized businesses in the country, since it displays a step-by-step description of import, export and transit procedures for a particular product from the trader's point of view. It will present all the documents from each regulatory body of cross-border trade in a user-friendly form, as well as indicate the fees that are required to be paid for a particular trade operation.”

Timothy Brunto, Program Specialist of the ITC stressed:

“The certification of the available information is a process aimed at confirming the compliance of the information posted on the Portal with the norms and requirements in force in the countries to which this information is relevant. In other words, after the information is certified by the relevant authorities, all the data on the Portal will be completely reliable and representatives of the private sector will be able to use them in their business activities.”

Ready4Trade Central Asia project is a joint initiative of the European Union and the international Trade Centre aimed at the bringing the impact to the overall sustainability and inclusive economic development of the Central Asia by stimulating the interregional and international trade.