CHAPTER 4
Moving Goods on Corridors: Transit Regimes
Transit trade for developing countries has gained new recognition and is now a major topic in global forums and a new subject of regional initiatives. During the past 50 years, a number of trade, transportation, and transit agreements have been put in place around the world as instruments for economic development. However, there has been much less focus on implementing these plans, especially the mechanisms that make transit services possible over long distances and across several borders. The heart of the transit system is the transit regime, which is the set of rules and regulations that govern the movement of goods from their origin in the transit country (often a seaport) to their destination (such as a clearance center in the destination country). The efficiency of the corridor supply chain depends on its design and above all its implementation. The aim of this chapter is to clarify the conceptual framework for transit regimes and to examine why they do or do not work. Three main arguments are made here. The first is that at the heart of a functioning tranChapters 4 and 5 are based on the authors’ original research with contributions from Pilar Kent and Gerard Luyet. An abridged version (Arvis 2011) was included in the Border Management Handbook as chapter 17, “Transit Regimes.� The content here is an overhaul of the corresponding chapter in the Customs Modernization Handbook (De Wulf and Sokol 2005). 57