Trade monitoring

The rise and decline of free trade in the 19th century and the attendant economic and political consequences of these trends have always intrigued historians and economists. In the difficult times following World War I, when international trade relations had to be rebuilt, the free trade episode among European countries in the second half of the 19th century was perceived as a golden age. During that latter period, widespread economic development, driven by industrialization and technological change, went together with trade expansion supported by a network of bilateral trade treaties. This network started with the Anglo-French (Cobden-Chevalier) treaty of 1860 and triggered a series of other treaties among European countries. Bilaterally agreed reciprocal tariff reductions, together with the application of the unconditional mostfavoured-nation (MFN) clause contained in the treaties, led to historically low tariff levels, in particular for agricultural products. This period of largely unfettered trade across Europe lasted for nearly two decades up to 1879, faltering gradually thereafter and collapsing with World War I.

Acknowledgements are due to the International Monetary Fund, the International Trade Centre, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Statistics Division, the World Bank and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The assistance of all these organizations in supplying statistics as well as other information has greatly facilitated the work of the WTO Secretariat.

Imagine if a government proposed that its poor citizens pay more than its rich citizens for food, clothing and other essentials. Such a proposal would be met with universal outrage. But the fact is that poor countries are in effect paying nearly twice as much as rich countries to bring goods to their markets.

En 2011, la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística de la OMC organizó 61 actividades, muchas de ellas en colaboración con otras instituciones. Cabe mencionar la presentación del Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2011, la presentación de una publicación conjunta con la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) y una serie de seminarios celebrados en el marco del programa de talleres sobre comercio y desarrollo de Ginebra.

Malgré la disparition des obstacles traditionnels au commerce, tels que les droits de douane, et bien que les innovations dans les domaines des transports et des technologies de la communication aient réduit les distances entre les pays, les coûts du commerce restent élevés, en particulier dans les pays en développement, ce qui isole ces pays des marchés mondiaux et limite leurs possibilités commerciales tout en freinant leur croissance. Ces coûts élevés semblent aussi affecter de manière disproportionnée les petites et moyennes entreprises (PME), les produits sensibles au temps et les produits fabriqués dans les chaînes de valeur mondiales. Ils sont dus en grande partie à la pesanteur des procédures commerciales qui ralentissent le mouvement, la mainlevée et le dédouanement des marchandises.

The social structure of the Ecuadorian economy underwent considerable changes during the period under review (2011-2018). In particular, there was a notable decline in the oil sector’s share of GDP, which decreased from 13.2% in 2011 to barely 4.8% in 2017. At the same time, there was a growth in the share of services in GDP, driven above all by construction, trade and education, and health and social services. The fastest growing sector during the review period was aquaculture and shrimp fishing. The negative effects of the balanceof- payments crisis caused several sectors and branches of economic activity to contract in 2015 and 2016, and led to the adoption of safeguard measures and a cut in spending. The economic contraction triggered by the crisis had an impact on oil operations and repercussions in most industries.