Trade facilitation measures are welfare enhancing, and a multilateral agreement on trade facilitation will bring significant gains to world trade by reducing the transaction costs on exports of developing countries, thus making them competitive. This report is an attempt to analyse and present the contentious, but fundamental issues pertaining to trade facilitation in order to facilitate better understanding of these issues. It also aims to initiate discussions among the international trade community and act as a road map for future negotiations. The authors, in this study, stress the importance of infrastructure, human capital, institutions and incentives for the implementation of trade facilitation measures. A balance between trade facilitation measures and customs control is also emphasized, since for many developing countries, revenues collected from customs are an important source of income.