IFC: Measuring trade efficiency at North Macedonia’s borders

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), with the support of the Republic of North Macedonia is fulfilling its mandatory WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement obligations through a comprehensive Time Release Study (TRS+).

While the IFC steered and financed the initiative to capture empirical data for future logistics sector investments, the study itself was executed via deep on-site coordination with key national stakeholders, including the Customs Administration of North Macedonia, various Cross-Border Regulatory Agencies (CBRAs) such as veterinary and sanitary inspectorates, and private sector entities including customs brokers, freight forwarders, and trade associations.

The Customs Administration manages strategic trade corridors. Together, the four evaluated locations: Tabanovce, Kjafasan, and Bogorodica Border Crossing Points (BCPs), and the Inland Customs Office Skopje 1013, account for approximately 60% of the country’s total trade flow.

The Republic of North Macedonia needed to conduct a comprehensive Time Release Study (TRS+) to measure and publish the average release time of goods, identifying critical bottlenecks within both public and private sector workflows.

Regularly conducting a TRS is a mandatory international obligation of WTO membership under Article 7.6 of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), and trade facilitation directly dictates the economy’s regional and international competitiveness by reducing overall trade costs. The country had not conducted a formal TRS since 2015, leaving a significant data gap.

The study required strict multi-agency coordination during a compressed 7-consecutive-day field measurement period (January 25 – February 2, 2022), and had to account for regional market variances, staffing shortages across specific cross-border regulatory agencies, and unaligned operating hours between agencies.

Civitta, with the support of the IFC, deployed the WCO Time Release Study (TRS+) methodology, blending qualitative field data – direct observations from on-site supervisors and enumerators, with quantitative datasets extracted from the EXIM system to analyse licenses, permits, certificates, and other documents (LPCOs), alongside targeted physical questionnaires.

• Pilot study. Before full deployment, Civitta ran a pilot study to uncover practical operational challenges and optimize the field research design ahead of the compressed measurement window.
• Public–private comparison. Data was structured to compare relative time burdens between public authorities and private sector stakeholders (drivers, brokers, freight forwarders), rather than treating clearance as a single, undifferentiated process.
• Deep stakeholder coordination. Civitta worked closely with the Customs Administration, field supervisors, regional trade chambers, and the Customs Agents Association to align public data tracking with real-world private sector realities.

The study successfully measured processing benchmarks and proved a general reduction in import wait times compared to 2015 data.

• Efficiency confirmed at the border. Border Police control and truck weighing were found to be highly efficient, taking just 2 minutes across all four locations.
• Bottlenecks reassigned. The data clearly showed that private sector document preparation and a lack of agency staff synchronization are greater drivers of delay than actual customs clearance itself.
• Strategic roadmap. The study provided clear evidence supporting the upcoming National Single Window (NSW) initiative and broader regional integration frameworks.
• Smarter staffing, not longer hours. Since only 16% of LPCOs are submitted outside business hours, the Customs Administration was able to prioritise increasing inspector capacity during peak hours over introducing costly 24/7 shifts.

The study sets in motion data-driven policy reforms that will continuously lower the transactional costs of trade. By implementing the recommendations, North Macedonian trading companies stand to gain higher agility and cost-competitiveness within CEFTA, the Open Balkan initiative, and wider international markets.

1. Private sector capacity matters. Trade facilitation isn’t solely a public sector issue — in efficient customs environments, most delays shift to private brokers making documentation errors, making tailored training and digital aids (like video tutorials) vital.
2. Process alignment beats round-the-clock availability. Eliminating undue delays requires synchronizing agency shift changes and matching staff numbers (e.g., veterinary and phytosanitary inspectors at BCP Kjafasan) to actual workload, rather than simply extending hours.
3. A scalable framework. The TRS+ methodology proved that simplified customs procedures can cut average import/export times to less than one-fifth of regular cargo timelines — directly applicable to any developing economy looking to optimize border infrastructure and leverage regional trade agreements like Green Corridors.