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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 25, 1999

Answers

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Y2K trade problems loom for poor countries--UNCTAD

11:18 a.m. Jun 25, 1999 Eastern

GENEVA, June 25 (Reuters) - A ``significant number'' of developing countries face severe trade disruption and a collapse of customs operations at year-end because they are not ready to cope with the year 2000 Y2K 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 on Thursday to the World Customs Organisation, were released by the U.N. agency in Geneva on 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, about 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 Oragnisation to set up a task force, adding that UNCTAD was ready to provide technical advice.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 25, 1999.

"...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.''"

It's all in the details, isn't it?

And "local" except when the impact is global.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 25, 1999.

If customs isn't working, would smuggling be illegal?

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), June 26, 1999.

It won't matter if the poorer countries have working customs posts or not. Twelve months from now, if there is a Y2K-induced shipping capacity shortage, the poor nations will not be able to compete for the product or shipping. Whatever shipping is available is going to be available to the highest bidder, and if it comes to a battle of deep pockets between say France and Swaziland to get grain shipped in from overseas, which country is going to get fed and which is going to go hungry?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), June 26, 1999.