Trade monitoring
Los aspectos económicos de las normas y el comercio
Vivimos en un mundo firmemente basado en normas de productos. Es posible enviar un fax a cualquier lugar del mundo porque los aparatos de fax obedecen a un protocolo común. Es posible compartir archivos informáticos porque los ordenadores utilizan modelos normalizados de equipo y programas informáticos. La necesidad de normas de productos no es nueva. Ya en tiempos bíblicos, la falta de un idioma común (normalizado) hizo estragos en la Torre de Babel (Shapiro, 2000). En tiempos más recientes, durante el gran incendio de Baltimore de 1904, los bomberos que acudieron de ciudades vecinas no pudieron luchar contra el fuego de manera eficaz porque sus mangueras no encajaban en las bocas de incendio de Baltimore.
Introduction
The Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) was first established on a trial basis by the GATT contracting parties in April 1989. The Mechanism became a permanent feature of the World Trade Organization under the Marrakesh Agreement which established the WTO in January 1995.
Participation of developing economies in world trade
Developing economies recorded a decline in the value of merchandise trade for the second year in a row, with both exports and imports decreasing by 6 per cent in 2016. A surplus in global supply and a decline in prices for oil products continued to have an impact on the export of fuel products, an important sector for many developing economies. However, the decline recorded for merchandise trade was less severe than the -14 per cent recorded in 2015 for exports and -13 per cent recorded for imports. Merchandise exports from least-developed countries (LDCs) decreased by 6 per cent in 2016, resulting in a slight decline in their share of world merchandise exports, which now stands at 0.94 per cent.