Trade monitoring

WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo raised the issue of developing countries’ access to trade finance at a seminar of the Working Group on Trade, Debt and Finance in March and again at the Third UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July. Trading companies, in particular from developing countries, find increasing difficulties in accessing trade finance. DG Azevêdo pledged to consult multilateral partners and make concrete proposals in the first half of 2016. The Working Group continued efforts to improve understanding of the links between exchange rates and trade.

Promouvoir la transparence en matière de commerce et de politique commerciale et suivre les tendances de l’économie mondiale font partie des fonctions principales de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce. En fournissant des informations sur le commerce et sur l’évolution de l’accès aux marchés au moyen de diverses publications et de bases de données en ligne, l’OMC offre aux responsables politiques et aux analystes un dispositif complet qui leur permet de comprendre et de suivre ces tendances

The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) came to an end on 1 January 2005. Much interest, not to mention concern, was expressed about the likely impact on production and trade of the removal of quota restrictions. It was apparent to most observers that there would be winners and losers from the additional liberalization. It is too early to say how the market will look beyond the relatively short period upon which we can base our observations, but this note looks at what we know so far about the pattern of trade that has emerged since the quantitative restrictions were (largely) removed. A caveat is in order here: there can be little doubt that the termination of the AT C affected the patterns of trade observed in 2005, but we have not developed a rigorous analytical approach to the question of what other factors might also influence the pattern of trade flows.