Investigación económica y análisis de políticas comerciales
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Supply chains in the economics literature
Many unskilled labour-intensive production tasks began to be offshored by advanced country firms to developing countries, where low-cost but relatively unskilled labour imparted a comparative advantage, essentially in final assembly operations, combined with institutions that could absorb firm-specific technological know-how. This profitable international production fragmentation became feasible with the onset of the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution, which enabled the coordination of spatially dispersed complex tasks at a relatively low cost. The growth of global supply chains has changed the distribution of incomes across countries. Participation in these supply chains, initiated by the successful completion of low value-added manufacturing tasks, contributed to industrialisation and high rates of economic growth in several Asian developing economies. The process of catch-up with developed economies is likely to get stronger as many of these countries seek to move up the value chain through their exposure to advanced technologies (made available by the offshoring process) and build up human capital. At the same time, the continued exclusion of several developing economies from global supply chains, such as those in Africa, means that the gap among countries in the developing world could widen. The international fragmentation of production has also affected the distribution of incomes within countries. In advanced economies, the direct, negative effect of production fragmentation on employment and wages for lowand semi-skilled workers is the primary concern. In developing economies, production fragmentation is likely to create jobs for a large pool of unskilled labour. However, because a relatively unskilled activity in a developed economy may be a relatively skilled one in a developing economy, offshoring may increase the demand for (and returns on) skilled labour among developing economies. These distribution effects, both across and within countries, are likely to affect trade policy, and consequently, the evolution of supply chains.
The 2013 WTO accession of Tajikistan: Experience of a landlocked economy in a changing regional economic configuration
Tajikistan was part of the Great Silk Road, a system of caravan routes connecting Eurasian countries between the second century BC and the fifteenth century AD. The development of trade throughout Central Asia encouraged the people of this region to adapt to the demands and requirements of consumers thousands of kilometres away, both in western Europe and in China. Tajikistan’s principal rationale for seeking WTO membership was to gain access to new markets and secure the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/WTO right of freedom of transit, reinserting Tajikistan into trading routes, comparable to its location in the historic Great Silk Road system. By becoming a member of the WTO in 2013, Tajikistan is opening up new markets for its goods, just as it did several centuries ago. Tajikistan sought WTO membership to sustain domestic reforms. Domestic reforms entailed enactment, repeal and/or amendment of approximately one hundred laws and regulations. In the experience of Tajikistan, successful negotiating factors included, inter alia, a technically competent negotiation team, support from WTO members, strategically defined negotiating objectives, accompanied by a strategy for cooperation. Post-accession considerations should be part of an accession strategy. This chapter outlines Tajikistan’s road to the WTO.
L’économie des subventions
Cette section a pour objet d’aider le lecteur à mieux comprendre deux questions jumelles, à savoir pourquoi les pouvoirs publics ont recours à des subventions et quels sont les effets des subventions sur le commerce international. Comme c’est souvent le cas dans l’analyse économique, le point de départ de ce qui suit est une économie “de référence“ dans laquelle les marchés sont parfaitement compétitifs. Cette approche permet d’obtenir des indications générales sur l’incidence de mesures d’intervention telles que les subventions. Comme on l’explique plus loin, dans un marché parfaitement compétitif, rien ne peut justifier une subvention. Dans le cadre d’un marché parfait, l’introduction d’une subvention ou d’une autre mesure gouvernementale serait inefficace et réduirait le bien-être. Mais si l’on assouplit l’hypothèse du marché parfait, il peut y avoir des cas où une mesure telle qu’une subvention accroît le bien-être. Une subvention efficace peut remédier à une défaillance du marché et équilibrer les coûts et les avantages sociaux et privés.
Original Members - WTO accessions from a member’s perspective: Safeguarding the rules-based system
Forms of collective action and balanced commitment through negotiations were the foundation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the structure for its daily work. These remain at the centrepiece of work in the WTO, in a system structured on the balance of rights and obligations. GATT contracting parties established the principles of balance and reciprocity, trade liberalisation and a system of mediation and dispute settlement for mutual resolution of GATT provisions. From this base, expansion of membership, pursuant to accession negotiations, has required a commitment to accepting GATT/WTO rules resulting from previous negotiations. WTO accession supports applicants’ efforts for economic reform and integration into world markets. This is one of the most important benefits of membership. Although challenging, accession negotiations and the implementation of WTO provisions support important economic goals such as sustainable growth, the promotion of high-tech industries, attraction of foreign direct investment, raised living standards and global assertion of national trade interest.
La teoría del comercio y los recursos naturales
En la presente sección se examinan las características fundamentales del comercio de recursos naturales desde una perspectiva teórica. ¿Constituye el comercio un mecanismo eficiente para garantizar el acceso a los recursos naturales? ¿Qué efectos tiene el comercio en los recursos finitos o agotables, incluso en condiciones de “acceso libre”, en que los recursos naturales son de propiedad y acceso comunes? ¿Tiene el comercio efectos en el medio ambiente? ¿Agrava el comercio los problemas relacionados con la predominancia de los recursos en determinadas economías o los reduce? ¿Y de qué forma afecta el comercio a la volatilidad de los precios de los recursos? A estas preguntas generales se responde analizando las pertinentes publicaciones teóricas sobre los factores determinantes y los efectos del comercio de recursos naturales.
Note on the WTO Chairs Programme
The WTO Chairs Programme (WCP) was launched in 2010 as a capacity-building project. It aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of the trading system among academics and policy makers in developing countries through curriculum development, research and outreach activities by universities and research institutions. Information on the WCP is available at www.wto.org/wcp.
Value chain governance in export commodities: The case of Indonesia
Indonesia has been regarded as one of the success stories of developing countries escaping the resource curse (Rosser, 2004; 2007). In many developing countries, instead of becoming a source of economic growth, abundant natural resources have been associated with stagnant growth, a condition known as the resource curse or the paradox of plenty. As argued by Sachs and Warner (1997), economies with abundant natural resources have tended to grow less rapidly than those with scarce natural resources. Similarly, the resource curse has been defined as “the phenomenon whereby a country with an export-driven natural resources sector, generating large revenues for government, leads paradoxically to economic stagnation and political instability” (ODI, 2006). This chapter will review the efforts undertaken by Indonesia to diminish its dependency on natural resources and to better connect to global value chains (GVCs).
Disclaimer
Any views given in this dictionary on WTO agreements, provisions, panel and Appellate Body reports, or any other information provided by the WTO, are the sole responsibility of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of WTO Members, the WTO Secretariat or the Appellate Body. As such, the definitions in this dictionary do not constitute authoritative interpretations of the legal texts of the WTO. They are presented for illustrative purposes only.
The impact of the trade liberalization brought by the ITA
Participants in the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) significantly liberalized trade in information technology (IT) products by reducing the rates of both the bound (the maximum rate that a WTO member can legally levy on a certain product) and most-favoured nation applied tariffs (those applied in practice by governments).
Introduction
Le monde est en constante évolution, porté par les innovations technologiques qui influent sur notre façon de vivre et de faire des affaires. L’histoire de l’économie mondiale est intimement liée aux progrès technologiques. L’invention de la machine à vapeur a conduit à la mécanisation de la production, la découverte de l’électricité a permis la production de masse et, grâce à l’essor d’Internet, il est devenu possible de coordonner à distance les différentes étapes de la production, ce qui a entraîné la fragmentation de la production et l’apparition des chaînes de valeur mondiales.
Towards a new digital era
This section describes the rise of digital technologies and identifies the technological forces that have helped propel their growth. It examines how digital technologies are changing the economy by giving rise to new markets, goods and services, and discusses some of the concerns that have arisen in parallel regarding privacy, market concentration, the impact on productivity and the digital divide. The section also discusses the methodological and data challenges involved in trying to measure the value of digital transactions and digital trade, and provides estimates culled from international organizations and national authorities, as well as financial reports from a number of well-known firms.
Recent trends in international trade
The world economy expanded by 3.3 per cent in 2005, less rapidly than in 2004, but still slightly faster than the decade average. Economic growth remained strong in most regions although less buoyant than in the preceding year. Only Europe’s economy continued to record low GDP growth – less than half the rate observed in North America. In contrast to Europe, Japan experienced a strengthening of economic activity. In light of slower economic growth worldwide in 2005 and of oil market developments, merchandise trade growth – like GDP growth – decelerated in real terms, but still exceeded the average for the last decade.
Legal avenues to ‘multilateralizing regionalism’: Beyond Article XXIV
A core feature of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is that they offer, or are supposed to offer, WTO-plus liberalization. The question that this book examines is how these WTO-plus elements could be ‘multilateralized’. To give teeth to WTO-plus benefits in RTAs, most RTAs include regional dispute settlement. This chapter analyses how these regional dispute settlement systems, and the legal disciplines they enforce, interact with multilateral dispute settlement at the WTO. Failure to give effect to regional dispute settlement may endanger WTO-plus liberalization; finding a legal balance and mutual support between RTAs and the WTO can be one of the ways to ‘multilateralize regionalism’.
Prólogo del Director General de la OMC
En general, los servicios no se tienen suficientemente en cuenta en los debates sobre el comercio mundial, aunque representan la mayor parte del comercio en muchas economías desarrolladas y están creciendo con rapidez en numerosas economías en desarrollo. Esa menor atención se debe tal vez a que los servicios son menos tangibles, y las cuestiones relacionadas con el comercio de servicios suelen ser más complejas. Por ello, el presente Informe trata de desmitificar el comercio de servicios. Su objetivo es arrojar nueva luz sobre esa parte esencial del comercio mundial, ofrecer una descripción detallada del comercio de servicios en la actualidad y examinar de qué forma podría evolucionar en los próximos años, sobre todo a medida que las nuevas tecnologías hacen que algunos servicios sean cada vez más comerciables.
Supply chains and trade policy
Supply chains and trade policy are tightly linked to each other. Trade distorting effects of tariff and non-tariff barriers (which are levied on the gross value of imported goods, rather than value-added) are magnified in global supply chains; it takes many more cross-border transactions to provide a single unit of a final good than before. Global supply chains create new forms of cross-border spillover effects and have therefore generated a demand for deep forms of integration, which could make productionsharing activities less vulnerable to disruptions or restrictions. For instance, it is not possible to disentangle merchandise trade from services trade, and standards may need to be stipulated to make each stage of production compatible with the other. At present, “deep” provisions in international trade agreements – covering the areas of services, investment, competition policy and intellectual property, among others – are largely found at the regional level. “Deep” RTAs, in turn, may stimulate the further proliferation of global supply chains if they cover a sufficient number of economies and do not introduce distortions with third countries. However, the wild and tangled growth of RTAs and stringent rules of origin have created problems (“spaghetti bowl” trade). To the extent that RTAs are consolidated and gradually multilateralised, they might prove a useful step to achieving the first-best solution of multilateral trade liberalisation that goes beyond tariff reduction. Examples can be found in the field of technical barriers to trade, trade facilitation, the opening of markets for trade in services and the presence of contingency measures within trade commitments. The multilateral trading system faces the challenge of addressing the need for trade integration between countries while preserving non-discrimination between regulatory regimes.
Defining innovation-oriented government policies and their evolution in the digital age
Since the 2008-09 financial crisis, industrial employment in some economies has seen accelerated decline and international competition in mature industrial sectors has tightened; the evolution of productivity and wages has slowed; and a new economy enabled by digital technologies has emerged. In this context, industrial and innovation policies have undergone renewal, and these “new industrial policies” are reflecting a duality inherent to all government policy phases, as they aim to address the difficult modernization of traditional industries, while also aiming to bring about an adaptation of economies to digitalization.
Algunos rasgos de la evolución del comercio a medio plazo
El comercio internacional de combustibles y productos farmacéuticos ha crecido por encima de la media en los últimos años, afectando a la estructura de las corrientes mundiales del comercio de mercancías. A continuación se examinan estos aspectos.
Introduction
Les services sont devenus le secteur le plus dynamique du commerce mondial – mais d’une manière qui n’est pas toujours reconnue ou comprise. Non seulement ils dominent aujourd’hui de nombreuses économies nationales, mais ils jouent aussi un rôle plus important dans l’économie mondiale. Cela s’explique par de nombreux facteurs – dont la consommation, la libéralisation et l’investissement –, mais c’est la technologie qui a changé la donne. Les services qui étaient autrefois difficiles à échanger du fait qu’ils ne pouvaient être fournis qu’en personne deviennent de plus en plus faciles à échanger, car ils peuvent être fournis numériquement. Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2019 examine cette mondialisation des services – les raisons pour lesquelles elle se produit, son incidence sur les économies et les domaines dans lesquels de nouvelles approches politiques sont nécessaires.
Foreword by the WTO Director-General
The 2010 World Trade Report examines trade in natural resources. This is a topic of growing importance in international trade relations. Natural resources are at the root of much economic activity, they are a key component of many economies, and their share in world trade is growing. A number of features exclusive to natural resources explain why they occupy a special place in economic, political economy and policy analysis.
Policies to improve the supply chain: What needs to be done?
As the agenda of trade facilitation achieves more prominence on the international stage, the prioritization of interventions takes on increasing importance. Discussions of trade facilitation often take in anything that might promote trade other than tariff reduction. In its broadest sense, trade facilitation can include both eliminating nontariff measures (NTMs), often defined as policies other than tariffs that impede trade (compare UNCTAD, 2010), reforms to customs and border measures, improvements in transformation and communications infrastructure, regulatory issues, and broader improvements in transparency and accountability that could impact trade. From the business standpoint, the classification of methods of trade facilitation is not as important as taking action that will in fact promote trade.
Introduction
Over the past decades, trade flows have become increasingly global. Today, South- South trade represents around one-half of global trade and the top ranks of major traders are not exclusively occupied by industrialized countries (OECD, 2010). Trade now spans all major world regions and continues to grow within and across those regions. Trade also takes new forms as trade in goods is increasingly accompanied by trade in tasks. Capital flows more freely across regions and trade and capital flows together have contributed to an increased transfer of technological change across regions. There is a strong sense that companies and countries well integrated in these global networks are part of a virtuous circle involving technological progress and growth. Not being connected, however, can represent a very serious bottleneck for future growth and economic development.
Agradecimientos
El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial ha sido redactado bajo la supervisión general de Patrick Low, Director de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística. Los autores principales del Informe son Bijit Bora, K. Michael Finger, Marion Jansen, Alexander Keck, Patrick Low, Hildegunn Nordas, Roberta Piermartini y Robert Teh. Las estadísticas comerciales y la información arancelaria fueron facilitadas por el grupo de estadística de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística, bajo la coordinación de Guy Karsenty, Julia de Verteuil, Andreas Maurer y Jürgen Richtering.
The evolution of the GATT/WTO Accession Protocol: Legal tightening and domestic ratification
Where are the legal roots of WTO Accession Protocols? How much was carried over from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade standard and practice? What customary practice governs the preparation and approval of accession decisions and protocols? What is the current substantive standard and basic architecture of Accession Protocols? Are there unique provisions in Accession Protocols that have emerged in twenty years of WTO accession history? To what extent do Accession Protocols come into play in the context of WTO dispute settlement? By comparing the empirical data contained in the WTO Accession Protocols with preceding GATT Accession Protocols, this chapter offers waterfront coverage of WTO Accession Protocols from the GATT baseline. The chapter shows that, although rooted in its GATT predecessor base, and remarkably consistent over time, some unique provisions have been incorporated into the architecture of the WTO Accession Protocols since 1995. Because Accession Protocols become integral parts of WTO Agreement after they come into force, the chapter argues that the specific ‘terms and conditions of accession’ in WTO Accession Protocols have had a direct and salutary impact on the entirety of the WTO Agreement through its tightened safeguard and upgrade. The chapter concludes by arguing that the evidence suggests that the WTO Agreement has been expanded by the absorption of the Accession Protocols over the course of the last twenty years, and that the effect on the WTO Agreement has been significant, rather than marginal.
Trade Multilateralism – Enhancing Flexibility, Preserving the Momentum
The book you are about to close picked up on the evolving discussion on accessions and trade multilateralism. The first book on the subject, WTO Accessions and Trade Multilateralism: Case Studies and Lessons from the WTO at Twenty, looked back. It took stock of two decades of accessions to the WTO, their welfare and development outcomes, the resulting improvements to market access, and their contribution to domestic reforms and to the rules-based multilateral trading system. It shone a powerful light on the GATT/WTO accession procedure – a process hitherto viewed as lacking transparency and complicated by its esoteric vocabulary and apparent detachment from the day-to-day conduct of trade.
Las subvenciones y la omc
En una parte anterior del Informe hemos examinado los argumentos económicos a favor y en contra de distintos tipos de subvenciones. El análisis económico nos indica que a veces las subvenciones permiten subsanar eficientemente diversos tipos de deficiencias del mercado. También nos indica que las subvenciones pueden distorsionar las corrientes comerciales si otorgan una ventaja competitiva artificial a los exportadores o a las ramas de producción que compiten con las importaciones. Que una subvención se considere como una intervención deseable para corregir una deficiencia del mercado o como una distorsión del comercio no deseable a veces depende de quién emite el juicio. Sin embargo, el análisis económico debería poder ayudar a determinar la conveniencia de una intervención desde la perspectiva de bienestar social y a evaluar las ventajas de otras formas de intervención. No obstante, los gobiernos pueden conceder ciertos tipos de subvenciones que guardan escasa relación con consideraciones de eficiencia, y en esos casos el análisis económico basado en un simple análisis del bienestar social resulta de poca utilidad. Además, en estos casos, es probable que el análisis sea más útil para asegurar que quienes adoptan políticas conozcan los costos que conlleva perseguir determinados objetivos, y los costos de otras formas menos costosas de alcanzarlos. También sabemos que las decisiones sobre lo que se va a subvencionar, en qué cuantía y por cuánto tiempo entrañan complejos aspectos técnicos respecto de los cuales es frecuente que los gobiernos no tengan información suficiente.
El programa de doha para el desarrollo
Un objetivo fundamental de la OMC es promover el desarrollo económico mediante una participación efectiva en el comercio mundial. En lo que respecta a la cuestión de cómo pueden los países en desarrollo derivar mayores beneficios de su participación en el sistema de comercio, tienen pertinencia tres aspectos de la estructura y las normas de la OMC. En primer lugar, las normas propiamente dichas, junto con las excepciones e interpretaciones permitidas, constituyen los cimientos del sistema y desempeñan una función clave en la determinación de las condiciones y oportunidades de comercio. En segundo lugar, se plantea la cuestión del alcance del sistema. No hay ningún tema que la OMC haya considerado y luego descartado, de modo que esto se refiere a la inclusión de nuevos asuntos. En tercer lugar, las medidas de protección aplicadas a las exportaciones de un país también contribuyen considerablemente a definir las condiciones y oportunidades de comercio. En síntesis, la índole de las normas de la OMC, el alcance de esas normas y las condiciones del acceso a los mercados son las tres cuestiones principales que determinan la calidad y utilidad de la OMC para sus Miembros. Por lo tanto, no debe sorprender que cada uno de estos tres elementos figure de manera destacada en el Programa de Doha para el Desarrollo.
L’impact du commerce sur les femmes dans leurs différents rôles
Au cours des trois dernières décennies, le monde a connu une intégration croissante. La part du commerce des marchandises dans le produit intérieur brut (PIB) est passée d’environ 43% en 1995 à près de 60% en 2017. Les droits de douane ont progressivement diminué à partir de l’établissement de l’Accord général sur les tarifs douaniers et le commerce (GATT) en 1948, puis des mesures de libéralisation unilatérale et huit cycles de négociations multilatérales ont fortement réduit les droits de douane appliqués par les Membres de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC). Les taux NPF (nation la plus favorisée) appliqués, supérieurs à 10% en 1995, se situaient en 2017 juste au-dessus de 7% (graphique 1.1). D’une manière générale, les pays qui sont ouverts au commerce international enregistrent une plus forte croissance, innovent, augmentent leur productivité et offrent à leur population des revenus plus élevés et des perspectives élargies.
German Employment Legislation and its Impact on the Trade and Labour Market Nexus
Motivated by Germany’s economic weakness and high labour market inflexibility, The Economist (1999) once described the country as “the sick man of the euro”. The public debate surrounding this statement considered Germany as one of the major threats to the euro, due to its persistently high rates of unemployment since the mid-1970s. The rather low levels of job creation were presumed to be caused by labour market institutions, including restrictive employment protection, a high level of union coverage and a generous welfare system. The German Government started to transform the labour market legislation at the beginning of the 21st century, by giving particular enterprises more flexibility in hiring and firing their employees as part of an in-depth labour market reform programme. Other adjustments included lower unemployment benefits and various active labour market policies. Consequently, unemployment rates in Germany were plummeting shortly after the enforcement of the reforms. Today, Germany’s rate of unemployment is at a record low level of 3.4 per cent, which is the second-lowest rate in the European Union (EU). To some extent, this success is an achievement that can be attributed to the rigorous labour market reforms.
The 2014 WTO accession of Yemen: Accession negotiations as an instrument for domestic reform, national security and international cooperation
In 2011, a popular revolution occurred in Yemen, leading to the formation of the government which brought the accession process to its conclusion in 2014, following years of long and complex negotiations. From the beginning, Yemen’s accession process was envisaged not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieve other, more imperative, objectives, including poverty reduction, decreasing levels of chronic unemployment and raising levels of sustained development to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. This chapter gives an account of the accession process, focusing on the positive effects of Yemen’s accession to the WTO, both as a catalyst for long sought-after domestic reform and as a useful and convenient path to reach higher levels of reform for which the accession process acted as a spur. The aspiration was to create a competitive business environment that would lead to efficient resource allocation and ultimately boost output and productivity as well as increasing the well-being of the populace and reaping the benefits of WTO membership. Joining the WTO does not mark the end of the reform process. There is work post-accession to establish and strengthen different institutions to exercise the benefits of WTO membership for Yemen.
The future of multilateral investment rules in the WTO: Contributions from WTO accession outcomes
Foreign direct investment and trade are increasingly interlinked due to the deepening integration of trade and production networks. Today, there is an ever-increasing percentage of imports in a country’s production. Responding to this increase, some countries have sought to limit the percentage of imports in their production by requiring that foreign investors use locally produced inputs, as an aspect of implementing priorities in development plans and/or strategic industrial policy. These policies and priorities have also been complicated and exacerbated by protectionism, whereby countries discriminate blatantly in order to promote local industries with policies that grant more favours to local producers and/or products and materials. All these practices impact negatively on international trade by distorting the conditions for fair competition. Although different rules have been developed at an international level to streamline these practices, currently there is no single comprehensive framework to govern them at the multilateral level. Despite this, WTO members, through accessions, have negotiated with acceding governments to refine and improve extant investment-related rules in the WTO. This chapter argues that WTO-specific outcomes, as in deposited Accession Protocols, have contributed to improving significantly the predictability of the investment regulatory laws and policies of Article XII members, reinforcing existing investment-related rules on trade in goods and services, and enhancing the business-friendliness of WTO rules and the relationship with the private sector (including through expanded opportunities for investment), by binding, for example, their status quo policies and rules, and accession-specific obligations codified in domestic law and regulation.
Foreword by the WTO Director-General
The COVID-19 pandemic has neatly illustrated the multi-faceted ways in which globalization touches our lives. The deep interconnections of travel, trade and financial flows that characterize our era allowed the novel coronavirus and its associated economic shocks to spread around the world in a matter of weeks. Earlier pandemics took months, even years, to go global.
Prólogo del Director General de la OMC
El comercio y la tecnología están estrechamente relacionados. Desde la invención de la rueda hasta el hallazgo del ferrocarril o la aparición de los contenedores, la tecnología ha desempeñado siempre un papel clave en la configuración del comercio, y este fenómeno se está produciendo hoy a una velocidad sin precedentes. Estamos viviendo una era de cambios tecnológicos desconocidos hasta ahora, y las distintas innovaciones propiciadas por Internet podrían tener importantes repercusiones. La Internet de las cosas, la inteligencia artificial, la impresión 3D y las cadenas de bloques (blockchain), por ejemplo, pueden cambiar en gran medida cómo se comercia, quiénes comercian y qué se comercia.
introduction
Les subventions sont l’un des nombreux instruments de politique assujettis à des règles dans le système commercial multilatéral, mais elles soulèvent des questions plus complexes pour les responsables politiques que beaucoup d’autres instruments soumis aux règles du GATT/de l’OMC. Cela tient en partie à ce qu’elles peuvent être définies de différentes manières. Cela tient aussi à ce qu’elles sont employées pour atteindre des objectifs très divers. Même lorsqu’elles ne visent pas le commerce, elles peuvent influer sur les courants commerciaux. Les types de subventions dont traite le présent rapport sont essentiellement celles qui confèrent un avantage à certains producteurs nationaux et ont de ce fait un effet sur le commerce. La tâche complexe consistant à déterminer quelles sortes de subventions posent des problèmes du point de vue du système commercial et ce qui peut être fait pour y remédier occupe une place importante dans le programme d’activités de l’OMC /du GATT.
Le commerce international des services de transport aérien: Évolution récente et questions de politique
Comme c’est le cas pour d’autres services de transport, la relation entre le transport aérien et le commerce international se situe à deux niveaux. D’une part, le transport aérien est commercialisé en tant que service à part entière. D’autre part, il constitue un service intermédiaire essentiel pour de nombreux autres types d’échanges, qu’il s’agisse de marchandises ou de services (par exemple le tourisme). De nombreuses études ont fait ressortir l’importance d’une infrastructure de transport aérien fiable, efficace et efficiente, notamment dans les pays en développement, pour assurer la matérialisation des avantages du commerce (OMC, 2004). Ces études ont également souligné la contribution importante de l’aviation civile internationale au processus de développement et le rôle qu’elle joue dans les décisions commerciales et touristiques d’un grand nombre de personnes. Ce rôle est appelé à se développer avec l’innovation technologique, la déréglementation et l’élargissement de l’accès aux marchés pour les entreprises étrangères - autant de facteurs qui rendent le transport aérien plus accessible à une clientèle plus large dans un plus grand nombre de pays.
Policy responses to labour market adjustment and distributional changes
If the economy is to benefit from technological change and trade, workers will often have to change jobs or occupations, a process which may cause dislocation for workers. The more smoothly this process takes place in the labour market, the lower the adjustment costs for displaced workers and the greater the net gains to society from technological change and trade. Governments and other institutions can make the labour market more responsive to economic change through a range of measures that are targeted primarily at, but not focused exclusively on, the labour market. Reducing the costs of adjustment for workers can also lower public resistance to technological change and prevent the rise of trade protectionism.
Foreword
As the world becomes increasingly integrated, it becomes less and less possible for different policy areas to be handled independently of each other. The linkage between trade and health has been the focus of much debate: real concerns should be dealt with and any misunderstandings should be clarified based on sound evidence and rigorous analysis.