Jakarta. ASEAN traders have saved billions of dollars in costs by exchanging trade-related documents electronically under the so-called single window system.

 The ASEAN Single Window is an online portal that enables the electronic exchange of trade documents, thus greatly slashing paperwork and streamlining the customs clearance process. The system entered live operations across all member states at the end of 2019.

Over the past years, Washington’s foreign development aid agency USAID has been assisting ASEAN in implementing the single window by providing technical guidance and conducting surveys to track the cost savings. 

The USAID revealed that the ASEAN Single Window has helped the region’s traders to save an estimated $2,300 per transaction from 2018-2022. This totaled approximately $6.5 billion in savings. ASEAN members exchanged only about 137,230 digital custom forms using the ASEAN Single Window in late 2018. The cumulative total of exchanged documents later jumped to 4.4 million digital custom forms as of September 2023.

“Going forward, we will develop a work plan on how to advance and continue to improve the ASEAN Single Window,” Steven G Olive, the mission director of USAID regional development mission for Asia, told reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday. 

There are plans to link ASEAN Single Window and its American counterpart, namely the US Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) as a means to cut trade costs. However, this is still a long-term plan with Olive hesitating to give a specific timeline of when businesses would see this single window linkage.

“We will take things step by step. And some steps take longer than others,” Olive said.

ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn told the same presser that the single window system has significantly spurred trade between the bloc’s members.

“The US has been supporting the ASEAN Single Window. We will continue to work with the US to upgrade this. Trade will be the engine of our prosperity,” Kao Kim Hourn said.

ASEAN data showed that its total trade reached $3.8 trillion in 2022. About $856.6 billion came from transactions between ASEAN member states. The intra-ASEAN trade share had also grown from 21.3 percent in 2021 to 22.3 percent the following year. Trades in fuels and electronic products became the key driver of intra-ASEAN trade in 2022. China was ASEAN’s largest bilateral trading partner that year, accounting for $722.2 billion or about 18.8 percent of the overall trade. Followed by the US ($420.5 billion) and the European Union ($295.2 billion).