Global Financial Integrity is urging the recently established High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (Groupe de haut niveau sur la responsabilité, la transparence et l’Intégrité financières internationals –

FACTI) to focus on the need for greater integrity in global trade transactions.

The FACTI Panel supports UN member states in achieving their goals for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by providing information and recommendations in three areas of work: cooperation on tax matters, accountability and cooperation in settling disputes.

Trade integrity

The Washington-based non-profit that focuses on illicit financial flows says that to work toward trade integrity, the FACTI Panel should encourage multilateral organisations and governments to focus on international trade.

Specifically, GFI wants the panel to focus on the beneficial ownership of freight forwarders, shippers and other firms that are in the business of moving cargo.

Transparency needed

The non-profit also wants to see high-level discussions regarding the feasibility of governments posting information on all of their trade transactions online.

This transparency, according to GFI, will enable civil society, academics, researchers and journalists to determine if developing country governments are capturing the maximum revenue from their trade transactions or not.

DLT and free trade zones

GFI also wants FACTI to investigate the feasibility of using distributed ledger technology to address trade mis-invoicing and make efforts to improve transparency and accountability in free trade zones.

By taking these steps the non-profit believes developing countries can effectively realise trade integrity and reap the due benefits of their trade transactions.

Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News

Tags: FACTI, GFI, Sustainable Development, trade transactions