Recherche économique et analyse des politiques commerciales

La présente section montre l’importance du commerce des services dans l’économie mondiale en s’appuyant sur un ensemble de données expérimental établi par l’OMC, appelé TISMOS (Trade in Services by Modes of Supply – Données sur le commerce des services par mode de fourniture). Cet ensemble de données rend compte des services fournis selon les quatre modes définis dans l’Accord général sur le commerce des services (AGCS) de l’OMC; les statistiques traditionnelles sur le commerce des services ne portent que sur trois des quatre modes de fourniture de l’AGCS. La présente section traite aussi de la participation des économies en développement, y compris les pays les moins avancés (PMA), de l’importance des micro, petites et moyennes entreprises (MPME) et du rôle des femmes dans le commerce des services. Enfin, elle étudie la part de valeur ajoutée des services dans les chaînes de valeur mondiales.

The World Trade Report 2008 was prepared under the general direction of Deputy Director-General Alejandro Jara. Patrick Low, Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division, led the team responsible for writing the Report. The principal authors of the Report were Marc Bacchetta, Chad Bown, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, 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.

Informality is associated with increased vulnerability of countries to economic shocks. At the same time, informality raises the likelihood of being affected by (external) shocks. The combination of these two tendencies can create a vicious circle, weakening the long-term performance of a country, lowering the potential benefi ts it can derive from trade and reducing economic well-being. This chapter discusses how informal employment evolves over the cycle – differentiating among different segments of informal labour markets – and the consequences for economic resilience to shocks. It presents evidence of the extent to which informal economies increase volatility in growth performance and the frequency of extreme economic events. Moreover, the chapter discusses the particular interaction between international capital fl ows and labour market informality in worsening a country’s vulnerability to shocks. It emphasizes the potentially adverse effects of offi cial development aid and international investment by multinationals within global production networks.

Considéré comme un moyen de réduire la dépendance des pays en développement vis-à-vis des marchés des pays développés et de diversifier les exportations du Sud au-delà des seuls produits primaires, le commerce Sud-Sud est depuis longtemps encouragé. Pour l’essentiel, les mécanismes mis en place en vue de favoriser la coopération entre pays en développement ont pris la forme d’arrangements sous-régionaux ou régionaux de nature souvent préférentielle. Durant les années 50 et 60, la promotion du commerce Sud-Sud s’est inscrite bien souvent dans un ensemble de mesures ancré dans une stratégie qui visait à substituer aux importations des productions nationales protégées par des obstacles au commerce élevés. Le commerce Sud-Sud a progressé par à-coups, car les économies en développement alternaient alors les phases d’expansion et de repli. En dépit des efforts déployés pour promouvoir et diversifier le commerce Sud-Sud, les flux de produits primaires sont restés prédominants dans la plupart de ces régions, et ce commerce Sud-Sud ne représentait que 6,5 pour cent du commerce mondial en 1990.

Energy issues have not been systematically discussed by WTO members in the multilateral trading system. This is owing to the fact that there is no rule on energy per se in WTO agreements. Yet all tradable energy goods and services are covered by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and the General Agreement on Trade in Services respectively. With energy security and climate change high on the global agenda, there is increasing interest in how to deal with energy-related issues during WTO accession negotiations, particularly given that several energy-producing countries, energy-transit countries and energy-consuming countries are currently in accession negotiations. Following the examples of earlier accessions, the ongoing negotiation dossiers would need to negotiate energy-related specific obligations in their terms of accession. This chapter identifies five key themes relating to energy in the WTO Accession Protocols of the Article XII members and explains the rationale of how these topics relate to trade in energy based on the existing WTO rules. Further, it categorizes similar energy patterns and trends for Article XII members. Finally, the chapter draws lessons for future WTO rule-making by arguing that these ‘updated’ rules on energy, found in Article XII members’ Accession Protocols, will have the potential to guide the envisaged regular work of the WTO on future rule-making on trade in energy, thereby contributing to international energy cooperation in the context of the rules-based multilateral trading system.

Le formidable dynamisme de l’économie mondiale depuis un quart de siècle s’est accompagné de profonds bouleversements, ce qui n’est guère surprenant dans la mesure où les deux phénomènes sont étroitement liés. L’économie mondiale ne prospère que si la productivité augmente ; et la productivité n’augmente que si l’économie mondiale produit plus et mieux, de manière plus efficiente. Les préoccupations que la mondialisation suscite actuellement dans de nombreux pays peuvent être attribuées, du moins en partie, aux défis de l’ajustement économique liés à la croissance continue de la productivité dans l’économie mondiale. Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2017 s’intéresse à deux des moteurs les plus puissants du progrès économique mondial aujourd’hui, la technologie et le commerce, et examine comment ils influent sur les marchés du travail. Il analyse l’évolution des défis de l’ajustement au nouveau marché du travail et la manière dont les économies s’adaptent. Il examine en particulier les points communs et les différences dans la façon dont la technologie, d’une part, et le commerce, d’autre part, influencent le comportement du marché du travail.

This Section focuses on standards-related WTO legal texts and relevant jurisprudence. The Section begins with a discussion of the texts themselves. This is followed by a detailed discussion of some of the key concepts relevant to standards in the TBT and the SPS Agreements as well as GATT 1994. The Agreements are then placed in the context of the economic discussion presented in the previous Sections and reference is also made to accumulated standards-related jurisprudence. Since the focus of the Report is on product standards, only WTO legal texts and jurisprudence bearing on “goods” will be discussed. It is important to note though that the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) also contains standards-related provisions on services, specifically, in Article VI paras. 4 and 5.

Mes sincères remerciements vont à ma collègue Kenza Le Mentec pour ses précieux conseils. Mme Le Mentec m’a initiée au sujet et elle a apporté de précieuses contributions, en particulier pour les sections techniques décrivant la technologie et pour la section sur la facilitation des échanges. Cette publication n’aurait pas été possible sans son soutien.

Research published by the European Parliament in 2017 claimed that Blockchain could “change our lives” (Boucher, 2017). What the various blockchain applications that are being developed in areas as diverse as trade finance, trade facilitation, trade in services, intellectual property and government procurement show is that Blockchain has the potential to impact both the traders and the government agencies involved in international trade significantly. Opportunities are multifaceted, but will only be realized if several key challenges are addressed.

The term logistics is an ancient one. Historically, the military has been lauded as the key underpinning example for good logistics practices, given their emphasis on good movement practices and operational excellence. Good logistics practice can be taken to denote the set of activities undertaken to ensure the smooth passage of goods and services from one location to another, relying on supply liaison officers to provide the necessary connection between stakeholders in a convoy. Indeed, it is the very adept use of logistics (both hard and soft) that has provided certain military forces with superior competitive advantage, the result of which is well documented in history.

This section looks at the ways government policy responds to the unique features of natural resources. It examines how the unequal distribution of natural resources give importing and exporting countries incentives to use restrictive trade and domestic measures to “capture” monopoly rents. It analyzes how governments can use trade restrictions and domestic measures to strengthen property rights or reduce the exploitation of the natural resource. Where the consumption or extraction of a natural resource affects the environment, it considers the steps governments could take to make producers and consumers take account of the social costs of their activities. However, the use of trade and domestic policies will have consequences for trade partners through changes to their terms of trade. In some instances, the availability of large resource rents may make government policies hostage to vested interests involved in the extraction and trade of natural resources. Finally, this section will consider how regional trade cooperation can assist in mitigating or resolving these potential frictions in natural resources.

Services have been considered non-tradable and therefore outside the scope of trade policy-making until quite recently. A logical consequence is that explicit policy barriers to cross-border trade in services are rare. What segments markets for tradable services is therefore largely in the realm of domestic regulation. Both the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and a number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) aim at developing disciplines on domestic regulation. GATS Article VI states that disciplines on qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements shall be established to ensure that regulation is not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service. Such disciplines are, however, yet to be established, but a reference paper on pro-competitive domestic regulation in telecommunications has been included in a number of World Trade Organization (WTO) members’ GATS schedules of commitments, and some RTAs have quite detailed disciplines on domestic regulation in this sector.

Las subvenciones son uno de los numerosos instrumentos de política general sujetos a normas en el sistema multilateral de comercio, pero plantean cuestiones más complejas para quienes adoptan las políticas que otros muchos instrumentos sometidos a las normas de la OMC o del GATT. Uno de los motivos de ello es que las subvenciones se pueden definir de diferentes maneras. Otro es que se utilizan para conseguir objetivos muy variados. Incluso cuando no van dirigidas al comercio, pueden influir en los flujos comerciales. El presente Informe se centra esencialmente en las subvenciones que conceden una ventaja a determinados productores nacionales, por lo que afectan al comercio. La difícil tarea de determinar qué tipos de subvención plantean problemas desde el punto de vista del sistema comercial, y qué cabe hacer al respecto, ocupa un importante lugar en el programa de trabajo del sistema del GATT y la OMC.

Obligations in accession protocols that go beyond the multilateral trade agreements are commonly referred to as ‘WTO-plus’ obligations. This chapter reviews the so-called WTO-plus obligations and argues that even though they are perceived to expand the existing obligations under multilateral trade agreements, they in fact do not create two classes of membership within the World Trade Organization (WTO). First, all accession processes are conducted on a case-by-case basis, and thus result in different obligations for each acceding government. Second, the WTO legal system is evolving continuously; therefore, to adopt new rules and advance the legal system, obligations cannot remain the same as in previous accessions. Third, non-discrimination remains one of the fundamental principles of the multilateral trading system. Accessions to WTO follow this principle and hence WTO-plus obligations have been and will continue to be set on a non-discriminatory basis. At the same time, WTO-plus obligations help upgrade the rules-based multilateral trading system. They fill gaps in the WTO rules on anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard regimes, and they advance WTO rules by promoting plurilateral agreements.

The shuffle of jobs offshore (or back onshore) has caught the attention and concerns of policy makers. The structural shifts in industrial structures are creating new winners and losers. Unskilled labour-intensive parts of the manufacturing production process have been increasingly offshored by advanced country firms to relatively unskilled labourabundant developing economies. This “offshoring” phenomenon is expected to reduce jobs for low- and semi-skilled workers in advanced economies while increasing them in developing economies. At the same time, resulting productivity increases in advanced economies can raise the demand for native workers – at least in complementary tasks. The empirical literature suggests that fears of job-losses due to offshoring in advanced economies are often exaggerated – restricted largely to the short-run. Policy makers can address these concerns through strengthening social safety nets in the short run and instituting skills-upgrading programmes to create a more flexible labour force in the long run. Greater challenges lie ahead for these policy makers, with an increasing number of services jobs being offshored from developed to developing economies. Even in developing economies, services offshoring can worsen inequality by raising skill premiums, thereby making investment in education equally crucial there. Looking ahead, given increasing wages in certain developing economies, increasing transport costs, new technologies and concerns about separating R&D from manufacturing activities, there is a possibility of a large number of manufacturing and services tasks returning to advanced economies.

La presente sección se ocupa de los textos jurídicos y la jurisprudencia pertinente de la OMC relativos a las normas. En ella se examinan en primer lugar los propios textos, para analizar después detalladamente algunos de los conceptos fundamentales pertinentes a las normas recogidos tanto en los Acuerdos OTC y MSF como en el GATT de 1994. Seguidamente se sitúan los Acuerdos en el contexto del análisis económico expuesto en las secciones anteriores y se hace también referencia a la jurisprudencia acumulada en relación con las normas. Dado que el presente informe se centra en las normas de productos, sólo se analizarán los textos jurídicos y la jurisprudencia de la OMC relativas a las “mercancías”. No obstante, es importante señalar que el Acuerdo General sobre el Comercio de Servicios (AGCS) contiene también disposiciones relativas a las normas en la esfera de los servicios, especialmente en los párrafos 4 y 5 de su artículo VI.

La présente section vise à mettre en perspective la discussion sur les effets du commerce et de la technologie sur le marché du travail. L’analyse ciblée de ces effets peut donner, à tort, l’impression que le commerce et/ou la technologie sont les principaux déterminants de l’emploi et des salaires. Toutefois, comme on le verra dans cette section, les niveaux d’emploi ou de chômage et le niveau des salaires sont largement déterminés par la façon dont fonctionne le marché du travail. Autrement dit, les effets de la technologie et du commerce sur le comportement du marché du travail dépendent, dans une large mesure, des conditions institutionnelles du marché du travail, des changements économiques concomitants et de la diversification des possibilités d’emploi lorsque des chocs se produisent.

L’intégration économique progresse à un rythme sans précédent dans le monde entier. La mondialisation a eu des retombées très bénéfiques pour de nombreux pays et de nombreuses populations. Mais elle fait aussi beaucoup de perdants, et l’opposition à la poursuite du processus va croissant, pour de multiples raisons. Le commerce n’est qu’un aspect de la mondialisation, et ses liens avec les forces économiques, politiques et technologiques en général sont multiples et complexes. Certains des arguments contre l’ouverture commerciale sont alimentés par des facteurs très divers – y compris la peur générale du changement – qui n’ont pas grand-chose à voir avec la poursuite de l’ouverture. Les gouvernements qui cèdent aux pressions contre le commerce exercées par les adversaires de la mondialisation risquent de faire de mauvais choix politiques. Le scepticisme à l’égard du commerce est à l’évidence un sujet de préoccupation, surtout à un moment où les Membres de l’OMC s’efforcent de mener à bien le Cycle de Doha. À ce moment crucial, il semble opportun de réexaminer la justification du commerce et de se demander si les arguments traditionnels en faveur du libre-échange tiennent encore.

This study is the product of a collaborative effort by the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Labour Office (ILO), aimed at providing an impartial view of what can be said, and with what degree of confidence, on the relationship between trade and employment, an often contentious issue of public debate. It attempts to do this through a review of the academic literature, both theoretical and empirical. A huge amount of research has been undertaken on this subject and within this there are numerous excellent literature surveys. This study intends to distinguish itself from the existing surveys by focusing on the connections between trade policies, and labour and social policies.

La présente section examine le rôle que le commerce des services joue pour aider les pays à parvenir à une croissance rapide et inclusive. La section C.1 analyse et tente de quantifier dans quelle mesure le commerce des services est bénéfique pour l’économie et promeut la croissance. La section C.2 étudie le rôle que le commerce des services joue dans l’amélioration de la compétitivité des entreprises nationales non seulement dans le secteur des services mais aussi dans le secteur manufacturier. La section C.3 examine de quelle façon le commerce des services promeut l’inclusion dans un certain nombre de domaines comme les compétences, l’égalité hommes-femmes et la localisation de l’activité économique. La section C.4 sert de conclusion.