Market access
Special topic
Are tariffs an issue of the past thanks to progress in multilateral or preferential trade liberalization? Many analysts are turning their interest to non-tariff measures (NTMs) or trade facilitation because nominal tariffs seem too low to make a difference 5% being sometimes presented as the threshold below which a difference in nominal tariffs does not matter anymore. Today most of North-North trade is subjected to duties lower than 5% while 80% of developing country exports to developed country markets is duty free. With South-South trade dominated by low tariff commodities custom duties appear more as an addition to total trade costs rather than a barrier to trade except for some specific product lines that still suffer from peak rates.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are due to all the data providers mostly national administrations or WTO delegations who have made this information available including through notifications presented as special topic. In a number of cases data has been made available on national websites or through regional organizations. Given the vast amount of statistical data and metadata that needed to be processed and because this information is not available in one single organization this publication was only possible as a joint effort of the WTO ITC and UNCTAD. Each of the three organizations has a proven track record and comparative strengths in the field of tariff analysis
Conclusions
An over-arching conclusion of this report is that regional and multilateral approaches to trade cooperation need not be incompatible but neither can they be seen simply as substitutes (i.e. arrangements that serve the same purposes or satisfy the same needs). Support for an increasingly outward-looking and inclusive global trading order has been strong in the period since the end of the Second World War and this growing trend towards openness has manifested itself through unilateral bilateral regional and multilateral approaches.