Documents menu

Y2K Trade Problems Loom For Poor Countries - UNCTAD

From Reuters
3 July 1999

GENEVA (Reuters) - A "significant number" of developing countries face severe trade disruption and a collapse of customs operations at year's end because they are not ready to cope with the year 2000 problem, a U.N. agency has warned.

Jean Gurunlian, a senior official of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said trade could be interrupted for these countries for weeks or "maybe months."

The text of his remarks, delivered Thursday to the World Customs Organization, were released by the agency in Geneva Friday. Gurunlian is director of UNCTAD's division for services infrastructure for development and trade efficiency.

Of the 75 countries using ASYCUDA, UNCTAD's Automated System for Customs Data and Management set up in the 1980s, some 35 to 40 are considered as having a high-risk of being affected by the Y2K problem, due to non-compliant software, according to UNCTAD officials. Another 20 countries are deemed to have other, more minor problems.

UNCTAD had been trying to help countries to comply for two years, Gurunlian said.

"I will be very frank. Early versions of ASYCUDA are not 'millennium compliant.' This means that countries using them will be unable to operate their systems beyond 31 December, 1999," Gurunlian told the Brussels meeting.

"Even in some countries which are using millennium compliant versions of ASYCUDA, problems with non-compliant proprietary software and hardware can also result in a collapse of customs operations at the end of the year.

"The consequences of inaction in this regard cannot be exaggerated. There is a very serious risk that international trade in a significant number of developing countries will be severely disrupted for an unpredictable number of weeks, maybe months," he added.

Gurunlian said that a "relatively modest amount" of money would be needed to solve the most pressing problems. He urged the World Customs Organization to set up a task force, adding that UNCTAD was ready to provide technical advice.