Trade monitoring

La Organización Mundial del Comercio puede verse desde distintas perspectivas. Es una Organización para la apertura del comercio. Es un foro para que los gobiernos negocien acuerdos comerciales. Es un lugar en el que pueden resolver sus diferencias comerciales. Aplica un sistema de normas comerciales. Fundamentalmente, la OMC es un lugar al que los gobiernos Miembros acuden para tratar de resolver los problemas comerciales que tienen unos con otros.

L’essor et le déclin du libre-échange au XIXe siècle et leurs conséquences économiques et politiques ont toujours intrigué les historiens et les économistes. Pendant la période difficile qui a suivi la Première Guerre mondiale, alors qu’il fallait rétablir les relations commerciales internationales, la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, marquée par le libre-échange entre les pays européens était considérée comme un âge d’or. En effet, le développement économique général, stimulé par l’industrialisation et le progrès technique, s’accompagnait alors d’une expansion du commerce favorisée par l’existence de nombreux traités commerciaux bilatéraux, dont le premier était le traité anglo-français (Cobden-Chevalier) de 1860, suivi par toute une série de traités entre pays européens. Les réductions tarifaires réciproques convenues bilatéralement et l’application inconditionnelle de la clause de la nation la plus favorisée (NPF) prévue dans ces traités ont conduit à des niveaux tarifaires historiquement bas, en particulier pour les produits agricoles. Le commerce entre pays européens est resté pratiquement sans entraves pendant près de deux décennies, jusqu’en 1879, après quoi les échanges se sont progressivement détériorés pour disparaître avec la Première Guerre mondiale.

Last year’s Annual Report was written when the Asian financial crisis was only a year old. There was still considerable concern then about the risk of contagion and deep recession. A year later, the situation is more healthy, although only the complacent would contest the need for policy vigilance. Important challenges remain, and recovery is far from complete. Global GDP growth decelerated sharply from the record expansion in the previous year while trade volume growth was more than halved. For parts of Asia a contraction in output growth also meant that import volume growth turned negative. The economic performance of other regions helped to maintain global output growth at around 2.0 per cent and world export growth at about 4 per cent in 1998. The United States continued a remarkable period of expansion, contributing significantly to the global figure. The European Union grew less, but above the global average.

This chapter aims to assess the progress of trade facilitation in the Arab region, and subsequently tests the effect of trade facilitation on bilateral trade flows within this region. The findings support the fact that the performance of Arab countries’ logistics systems in general is still weak and needs to be improved, as indicated by the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI). Vast divergence and discrepancies among Arab countries can be observed because of differences in income levels and geopolitical conditions. Hence, while some Arab countries try to develop logistics activities to take advantage of opportunities, seeking to establish regional logistics platforms, others are not only ranked among the lowest on the overall index, but are also near the bottom of the list for the different components of the LPI. The estimations presented here suggest that trade facilitation has positive impacts on intra-regional trade but that its scope is rather limited. Indeed, an improvement in trade facilitation (LPI score) of the exporting country by 1 per cent increases trade flows by 0.7 per cent. This impact could be higher and reach more than 2 per cent when sensitivity analysis is included. An improvement in trade facilitation (LPI score) of the importing country by 1 per cent boosts trade flows by 0.66 per cent. The results of this chapter show that there are slight gains in trade to be made from improving trade facilitation in Arab countries. Despite the fact that the overall LPI score is significant for both exporting and importing countries, the magnitude of that significance is relatively small compared with previous research findings regarding the same measures in other regions. However, the study suggests that trade facilitation could have a greater impact on trade among Arab countries and with other regions and underlines the importance of developing transport and physical infrastructure to enhance regional integration and trade cooperation.