This toolkit aims at raising awareness of the technical and legal tools to be called upon to adopt cross-border paperless trade systems and national single windows (NSWs). Key actions to develop paperless trade systems include: • enabling a conducive legal framework; • enabling a conducive technical framework; • promoting efficient governance and engaging stakeholders; • providing technical assistance.

This publication builds on the Legal Readiness Assessment Guide, the Technical Readiness Assessment Guide and the corresponding checklists for cross-border paperless trade. Developed by ESCAP as part of its support for the implementation of the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Crossborder Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific,1 the guides contain explanatory notes, good practices, references and other relevant information to assist users to conduct self-assessments of their crossborder paperless trade systems using the checklists.