Trade monitoring

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.

Since its last trade policy review, EI Salvador has made considerable progress on the economic front and has continued to consolidate its strategy of appropriate integration in international trade through active participation in the trade negotiation processes and through policies aimed at attracting foreign direct investment.

A vast literature in economics and political science focuses on the causes and effects of preferential trade agreements – and in particular on the way that border measures, such as tariffs, impact trade flows among countries both inside and outside such agreements. Often referred to as the “standard analysis of preferential trade agreements”, this literature is discussed in detail in Sections C.1 and C.2. However, many recent regional agreements have moved beyond border measures to include deeper forms of rules and institutions that can only be partly understood by the standard analysis of preferential trade. An examination of the economic motives – and the key issues – that lie behind these deeper integration agreements is discussed in Section C.3.

El 16 de diciembre de 2015, en la Décima Conferencia Ministerial, celebrada en Nairobi, los participantes en las negociaciones relativas a la ampliación del Acuerdo sobre Tecnología de la Información (ATI) llegaron a un acuerdo histórico por el cual se liberaliza el comercio de otros 201 productos de alta tecnología, cuyo valor anual se estima en 1,3 billones de dólares EE.UU., lo que corresponde a cerca del 10% del comercio mundial de mercancías. Este es el primer acuerdo importante de reducción arancelaria alcanzado en la OMC desde 1996.