Barriers to trade: The case of Kenya

International trade is the exchange of capital, goods and services across international borders or territories. Even though the WTO advocates trade opening, many WTO members do not liberalize every sector of the economy and, instead, maintain certain barriers to trade. Many of these barriers take the form of non-tariff barriers (NTBs), i.e. discriminatory non-tariff measures (NTMs) imposed by governments to favour domestic over foreign suppliers (Nicita and Gourdon, 2013). Barriers can also take the form of procedural obstacles, i.e. obstacles related to the process of application of an NTM rather than the measure itself.