Economic research and trade policy analysis
Helping Businesses Navigate WTO Accession
Accessions to the World Trade Organization (WTO) have profound implications for the private sector. The market liberalization required by accession commitments must be accompanied by deep structural reforms. Even though least-developed countries (LDCs) and developing countries usually benefit from special and differential treatment, the liberalization process can still lead to market adjustments that can test the status quo and require actions that will impact the private sector. This chapter discusses how the private and public sectors have cooperated to make the most of accession, while mitigating its risks. The chapter concludes that the business community values predictability. Therefore, acceding governments should find a way to integrate the private sector in the negotiating process. Gaining a thorough understanding of the objectives and implications of accession, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is a good starting point for building a partnership between the acceding government and its private sector. The acceding government should also seek consensus with the private sector on key accession commitments, on the direction of reform desired by stakeholders at the local level, and allow sufficient time to prepare the private sector to adjust to the expected changes in the business environment. The experience of recently acceded governments has shown that regular engagement with the private sector before, during and after accession enables new WTO members to make deeper liberalization commitments. When these commitments are the result of a consultative process between policy-makers and business, the likelihood of their successful implementation is greater.
Ressources naturelles, coopération internationale et réglementation du commerce
Cette section traite de la réglementation internationale du commerce des ressources naturelles. Elle commence par un aperçu du cadre juridique de l’OMC et examine brièvement comment les ressources naturelles s’inscrivent dans ce cadre. Cette section ne prétend pas examiner de manière exhaustive toutes les règles de l’OMC susceptibles d’avoir une incidence sur le commerce des ressources naturelles. Son but est plutôt d’exposer les règles ayant une pertinence particulière pour ce type de commerce, et de voir si, et dans quelle mesure, elles sont adaptées aux principales caractéristiques des secteurs de ressources naturelles. Cette section présente en outre certains accords internationaux régissant le commerce des ressources naturelles et examine leur relation avec les disciplines de l’OMC. Enfin, elle aborde plusieurs questions concernant ce secteur qui semblent avoir une pertinence réelle ou potentielle pour la coopération internationale et pour le système commercial multilatéral.
Overview
The year 2018 marked the 70th anniversary of the provisional application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1947). Although it was intended to be applied on a provisional basis, the GATT 1947 governed international trade for almost half a century. Its principles, rules and procedures evolved over this period to respond to the changing needs and challenges of GATT contracting parties, providing the basis for today’s strengthened international trade rules under the GATT’s successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Prefacio
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2005 sigue las pautas establecidas en años anteriores y aborda, para su análisis y examen, una serie de cuestiones cruciales de política comercial que afectan al sistema de comercio internacional. El objetivo subyacente del Informe es contribuir a una comprensión más profunda de las cuestiones de política comercial a las que los gobiernos han de hacer frente. El tema central del Informe del presente año es la normalización y el comercio internacional. Se han preparado ensayos más cortos sobre otros tres temas: la utilización de análisis económicos cuantitativos en la solución de diferencias en la OMC, el comercio internacional de servicios de transporte aéreo y los servicios de relocalización.
Definición de las políticas gubernamentales orientadas a la innovación y su evolución en la era digital
Desde la crisis financiera de 2008-2009, el empleo industrial en algunas economías ha registrado una disminución acelerada y la competencia internacional en sectores industriales maduros se ha intensificado; la evolución de la productividad y los salarios se ha ralentizado; y ha emergido una nueva economía basada en las tecnologías digitales. En este contexto, las políticas industriales y de innovación han sido objeto de renovación, y estas “nuevas políticas industriales” reflejan una dualidad inherente a todas las fases de la política gubernamental, dado que su finalidad es abordar el difícil proceso de modernización de las industrias tradicionales, tratando también de lograr la adaptación de las economías a la digitalización.
Agradecimientos
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2009 ha sido elaborado bajo la dirección general del Director General Adjunto Alejandro Jara y supervisado por Patrick Low, Director de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística. Los autores principales del Informe son Marc Bacchetta, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Coleman Nee, Roberta Piermartini, Michele Ruta y Robert Teh. Las estadísticas comerciales fueron facilitadas por el Grupo de Estadística de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística, bajo la coordinación de Hubert Escaith, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer y Jürgen Richtering. También han aportado contribuciones escritas Rudolf Adlung, Lee-Ann Jackson, Jesse Kreier y Hiromi Yano.
Acknowledgements
The World Trade Report 2009 was prepared under the general direction of Deputy Director-General Alejandro Jara and supervised by Patrick Low, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division, The principal authors of the Report were Marc Bacchetta, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Coleman Nee, Roberta Piermartini, Michele Ruta and Robert Teh. Trade statistics information was provided by the Statistics Group of the Economic Research and Statistics Division, coordinated by Hubert Escaith, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer and Jürgen Richtering. Other written contributions were provided by Rudolf Adlung, Lee-Ann Jackson, Jesse Kreier and Hiromi Yano.
Strengthening transparency in the multilateral trading system: The contribution of the WTO accession process
What specific obligations on transparency and notifications have been negotiated as part of the terms of accession to the WTO since 1995? What patterns and trends have emerged with regard to transparency and notification requirements in WTO accessions over time? What is the implementation behaviour on notification requirements of the states or separate customs territories that have negotiated their terms of accession, pursuant to Article XII of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization and joined the WTO in the period 1995 to 2013? How does the compliance of Article XII members on notification requirements under the WTO Agreements compare to the compliance behaviour of original members? By reviewing the empirical data available from more than thirty completed WTO accessions since 1995, representing about one-fifth of the WTO membership, this chapter examines each of these questions, assessing the extent to which the negotiated accession commitments on transparency have affected the existing transparency and notification obligations under the WTO Agreements. The results of this review suggest that the specific transparency and notification obligations resulting from accession negotiations have safeguarded and reinforced existing transparency requirements embedded across all WTO Agreements. They have also resulted in positive implementation behaviour, with regard to notification requirements, by WTO members that joined the WTO between 1995 and 2013, and have thus improved the compliance rate of the overall WTO membership. The number and scope of specific transparency commitments negotiated in WTO accessions underscores the importance that the WTO membership attaches to transparency, one of its founding principles.
The role of international economic law in addressing climate change
Low- and middle-income countries face supply-side constraints such as technical capacities, adequate hard infrastructure capacities, human capital (above all knowhow), access to adequate credit, and access to environmental goods and services that affect their capacity to address climate change and other environmental issues. This chapter discusses how the existing framework of international economic law may constrain the ability of low- or middle-income countries to overcome such supply-side constraints in order to address their, or their trading partners’, environmental concerns regarding climate change and be included in global value chains. We will consider what should be done from a legal perspective, what might be achieved, and the likely implications of international economic law for acquiring and implementing environmentally friendly technologies and financing climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Global supply chains: Why they emerged, why they matter, and where they are going
Global supply chains have transformed the world. They revolutionized development options facing poor nations; now they can join supply chains rather than having to invest decades in building their own. The offshoring of labour-intensive manufacturing stages and the attendant international mobility of technology launched era-defining growth in emerging markets, a change that fosters and is fostered by domestic policy reform (Cattaneo et al., 2010 and Baldwin, 2011b). This reversal of fortunes constitutes perhaps the most momentous global economic change in the last 100 years.
Foreword
This book is the outcome of joint work by the Secretariats of UNCTAD and the WTO. Its six chapters were written collaboratively by academics and staff of the two organizations. The volume aims to help researchers and policy-makers expand their knowledge of quantitative economic methods and data sources for trade policy analysis. The need for the book is based on the belief that good policy needs to be backed by good analysis. By bringing together the most widely used approaches for trade policy analysis in a single volume, the book allows the reader to compare methodologies and to select the best-suited to address the issues of today.
Impact of trade on labour market outcomes
This section looks at the empirical evidence on the effect of trade on wages and employment and addresses the following key questions: what is the evidence of the impact of import competition and offshoring on the level of wages and employment? What is the impact of increased market access for exports and the availability of cheaper imported inputs on employment? How can varied empirical evidence across countries be reconciled? How does the functioning of the labour market affect outcomes? How large are trade-induced adjustment costs? This section focuses particularly on wages and employment because research on other dimensions of labour markets, such as employment stability and security, is much less developed due to lack of cross-country data and thus does not allow for a comparison of how trade and technology play out on these other variables.
Main findings and conclusions
One of the most pressing issues confronting the multilateral trade system today is the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Much has been written about why governments might choose to negotiate preferentially or multilaterally, but this literature has been written almost exclusively from the perspective of governments. We know very little about how non-state actors (NSAs) view the issue of forum choice, or how they position themselves to influence choices by governments about whether to emphasize PTAs or the World Trade Organization (WTO). The case studies in this book have sought to address these issues through interviews with state and non-state actors involved in trade policy-making in eight countries.
Foreword
Services are often largely overlooked in discussions on global trade, yet they account for the majority of trade in many developed economies and are growing rapidly in many developing economies as well. This is perhaps because services are less tangible and the issues surrounding services trade are often more complex. This report therefore sets out to demystify trade in services. It aims to shed new light on this essential part of global trade, provide a detailed picture of trade in services today and consider how it might evolve in the coming years, particularly as new technologies make some services increasingly tradeable.
The year 2012: WTO accession of Montenegro – why did we apply to join? Priorities and results
Montenegro’s path to becoming a member of the WTO began in 1966, when the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). However, pursuant to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1992, its application to continue as part of the GATT was not accepted. In 2000, the FRY re-started the process of accession to the WTO, aware that WTO membership would increase its competitiveness in the international market, with the acquisition of the so-called ‘WTO label’. In 2004, Montenegro decided to continue the accession process as an independent customs territory. This chapter describes the process of Montenegro’s accession up to and beyond its becoming a member of the WTO in 2012. With the country’s membership in the WTO, an entirely new chapter begins in comparison to the period prior to accession negotiations. Post-accession, the interest of each member is to be involved as much as possible in the activities of the WTO, and to seek the scope to influence the decisions and rules that will be applied in the future.