A research on mutual expectations of parties on international trade process of Turkey regarding to trade facilitation

International trade has an important share in the economic growth and development of countries. After the depression in the world trade brought by World War II, countries signed the General Tariffs and Trade Agreement (GATT) in 1947 in order to remove barriers to international trade and prevent discrimination in trade. After operating between 1948 and 1993, GATT was transformed into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which has a strong legal ground and a sanction power in 1994. Since the day it was founded, WTO has been making important efforts to remove trade barriers and speed up trade. In this context, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) was signed in 2013 and entered into force in 2017. The aim of the study is to determine the mutual expectations of the parties involved in the trade process in Turkey, reveal their views and possible solutions regarding simplification and facilitation of the international trade process and work to correct these possible deficiencies. In this context, in the first part of the study, international trade policies and organizations aiming to facilitate trade are briefly discussed. In addition potential partners in trade process and the trade chain are discussed in detail. In the second part, TFA and its performance are examined. Also, Turkey's status in performance indicators among other countries as well as the process of implementation of the TFA was examined and possible earnings that can be achieved by facilitating trade are discussed. In the third section, interview questions are prepared and conducted according to TFA performance of Turkey to determine the issues and views of the parties involved in Trade process, such as companies and customs authorities. The interviews were conducted through In-depth Interview, a data collection technique of Qualitative Research Method. The data obtained were analyzed in detail using the NVivo program. As a result of the analysis, the problems of the actors in the trade process and their expectations from other actors were determined, and in the conclusion part, suggestions were made to solve these problems and to meet the expectations. Keywords: Trade Facilitation, Trade Facilitation Agreement, World Trade Organization, Import-Export Management