SECI PRO is another result of the activities initiated by SECI within the Border Crossing Facilitation Project and later on by the Transport Infrastructure Development Project. The activities undertaken under these two project groups have very soon shown that there is a very close relationship between trade and transport on the one hand, and the mechanisms for the actual enforcement of the rules and the procedures governing regional trade and transport activities.

Thus, after the creation of the SECI Business Advisory Council (SECI BAC) and the establishment of new public-private partnerships, and therefore of new channels of communication between the public and the private sector, it was understood that any further activities in facilitating trade and transport within the region would require a regional overarching framework in which the decisions reached by these partnership, could be more efficiently implemented and concrete results achieved.

SECI PRO was conceived to function as a network of a number of PRO Committees working as an extended arm of the SECI BAC. Its role would be to identify procedural bottlenecks concerning trade and transport facilitation and consequently ensure the implementation of procedural reforms and assist in the implementation of the improvements foreseen in the field on regional level by the Memorandum of Understanding on Trade and Transport Facilitation in South East EuropeBorder Crossing Facilitation Project Group. In other words, this meant that enforcement agencies form the region (i.e. customs and border police colleagues) will have to discuss changing established practices together with representatives from the private sector. The process was by far not simple and easy due to the fact that the nature of the stakeholders involved was different and this implied a long term process of negotiation to ensure political support of the process of implementation and harmonization of the already existing procedures.

The initial priorities of the various PRO committees foresaw an adaptation of the European Union's Single Administrative Document (SAD) and the harmonization and simplification of goods clearance procedures. In this direction, was also aimed the effort for the countries to create Single Payment Windows that would diminish stopping time at border crossing. Last, but not least, the need for training of private sector users of trade and transport infrastructure was identified. This resulted in the inclusion of a Trade Facilitation Component (TFC), within a comprehensive program that included funding on border crossing infrastructure improvements and the introduction of the new technology tools in the clearance process foreseen by the World Bank's Project for Trade and Transport Facilitation in South East Europe. Unlike the usual practice the TFC was implemented by the SECI PRO network and was one of the first examples for regional ownership of the development processes within South East Europe.

Having its regional office in Thessaloniki, Greece and a national office in almost all SECI participating states, established with the support of local Chambers of Commerce, the SECI PRO concluded within the framework of the activities of the network continues to be active within the region in the field of trade and transport facilitation and removal of non-tariff barriers to trade and transport, and to act as mediator between the public and the private sector consolidating public-private partnerships established within the region since its creation.