WTO To Examine Non-Tariff Barriers To Trade

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has launched a new discussion forum to gain members' input on tackling the issue of non-tariff barriers to global trade.

According to the WTO, the forum has been opened to consult with members of the research and policy community ahead of next year's World Trade Report, to be titled 'Looking beyond international cooperation on tariffs'.

The report is to focus on non-tariff measures (ie. policy measures, other than tariffs, that can potentially affect trade in goods) and services regulations, which are less transparent than tariffs. While some restrictions are in place for legitimate reasons (ie to allow countries to pursue legitimate policy goals) others, the WTO said, are mainly used to protect domestic producers from international competition.

“Most non-tariff measures (NTMs) affect the fixed costs for exporters of entering foreign markets, rather than their variable costs of servicing these markets," the WTO says. "Addressing obstacles raised by regulations may involve some form of regulatory convergence and may require a multi-layered governance structure. For these reasons, NTMs and services regulations raise particular challenges for international cooperation on trade. Understanding these challenges is crucial to determining what the WTO’s future agenda on such measures should be.”

Source: Tax News