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Text I.

The Costs of Trade

Despite globalization and the rapid increase in trade over the past 40 years, the costs of trading remain substantial – particularly for developing countries. Because of those costs, the actual volume of international trade is far less than economic theory would predict in the absence of significant barriers to trade. Trade within countries is much more intense than between countries. If trade costs were insignificant, the propensities to trade nationally and internationally would be equal. In fact, crossing a national border appears to dampen trade flows even in regions such as the EU, where formal trade barriers and customs posts have been removed. Finally, the retail prices of particular goods tend to diverge with distance, and this difference is much higher when the two locations being compared lie on either side of a national border.

The tax equivalent of trade costs can range from 30 to 105 percent, depending on the sector. High trade costs discourage investment and constrain the ability of local firms to integrate into global production chains.

Cost raising barriers may be linked in circles of causation, with significant impacts due to scale economies in transport. For example, a reduction in tariffs or a decline in costs at the port may stimulate trade that can offer opportunities for transport companies to operate at more efficient levels of scale. And if there is effective competition in the transport sector, this could lead to lower transport prices and more trade, and so on. A reduction in corruption and delays at the border may stimulate trade, add to government revenues, and allow for a reduction in tariffs to achieve a given revenue target, which again stimulates trade.

Landlocked countries that face high barriers in moving their imports and exports through neighboring countries have no choice but to pursue bilateral or regional solutions. These need not be embedded in a regional preferential trade agreement (PTA), but to be effective for small countries, agreements must provide for the settlement of disputes. Such provisions are likely to be more effective if they are part of a broad and comprehensive agreement.

Finally, removing institutional obstacles to crossing borders has a more certain benefit than reducing intra-regional barriers, because it saves real resources. Trucks that make more deliveries to the port are more productive. Interventions that lead to higher productivity have the greatest impact on trade and welfare—and on further increases in productivity. In contrast, removing revenue-generating tariff barriers on a preferential basis can lead to trade diversion and reductions in welfare.

Text II.

Types of Trade Barriers

There are many types of foreign trade barriers that can restrict or delay international exchange of products and services.

Import Policies. To ensure smooth international transactions it is important to take a proactive rather than reactive approach. It is essential to follow policies and keep transactions smooth and delays to a minimum when transporting products to your customers. Policies to adhere to can include: paying tariffs, obtaining licenses, meeting custom requirement.

Disregarding regulations or policies can result in delayed shipments, lead to fines, and if the offense is serious enough, it could be grounds for product seizure and even prosecution. Businesses interested in international trade should be aware of fees such as tariffs, licenses, and regulations for which they are responsible.

Meeting Government Regulations. It is necessary to meet regulations applicable to specific products or services.

Governmental Procurement Policies. Procurement problems may arise when trying to import or export products. One area that businesses sometimes have difficulty with is trying to bid on foreign contracts, but are not able to because of a variety of reasons. These reasons can include problems such as bid deadlines or contract liabilities etc.

Export Subsidies. Sometimes the U.S. government subsidizes export activity for specific products to encourage international trade. The subsidies are meant to help strengthen the businesses competitive position within the international markets. Other help may come in the form of export financing in special circumstances.

Intellectual Property Protection. Insufficient intellectual property, including the lack of patents, copyrights, and trademarks or the misuse of intellectual property can become a problematic trade barrier for companies. There can be a variety of reasons that this can happen.

Service Barriers. Service barriers can arise in a variety of ways when conducting business internationally. Some barriers might include receiving a limited amount of assistance from foreign financial institutions and experiencing difficulty meeting quotas.

Anticompetitive Practices: Anticompetitive practices are events that may inhibit the ability of a company to do business with another business or within another nation. An example of this issue could be trying to sell goods in a foreign country, but because of the government or a group of firms in that country that are using business practices you do not, or can not use.

Other barriers: Other barriers may include a combination of the above categories.

Text III.

Econometric studies using the gravity model.

The gravity model provides a useful framework for assessing the impact of policy variables on the behavior of bilateral flows between countries. Its name is derived from its passing similarity to Newtonian physics, in that flows between two countries increase in proportion to their economic mass (as measured by GDP) and are constrained by the friction between them (due to trade and other costs, which is proxied by distance). It is also common to use so-called dummy variables to capture geographical effects (such as whether the two countries share a border, or if a country has access to the sea), cultural and historical similarities (such as if two countries share a language or were linked by past colonial ties), and regional integration (such as belonging to a free trade agreement or sharing a common currency).

A disadvantage of using dummy variables is that they may capture the impact of a range of other effects that occurred during the same time period as the RTA (Regional Trade Agreements). For example, most applications do not distinguish the extent of multilateral trade liberalization. Ideally, specific trade policy variables would be included in the estimating equations, such the level of multilateral and preferential tariffs. However, the complexity of preferential trade arrangements precludes such an approach. A notable exception is the study done by Estevadeordal and Robertson (2004), who included a measure of preferential tariffs in their analysis of the impacts of RTAs on regional trade in Latin America.

Although widely used because of its empirical success, the gravity model had lacked rigorous theoretical underpinnings and was long criticized for being an ad hoc model. Recent theoretically grounded gravity equations are derived from models with strong constraints on preferences and technology, which undermines a straightforward interpretation of some of the estimated coefficients.

Another weakness of many applications of the gravity model is the proxying of trade costs by distance, and the implicit assumption that cargoes traveling 1,000 miles in Africa face exactly the same trade costs as similar cargoes traveling 1000 miles in, say, Europe.

Text IV.

EU Preferential Trade Arrangements

During the 1990s, the EU was an active sponsor of bilateral arrangements with individual countries and groups of countries. Prior to the recent accession of 10 new members, the EU had bilateral or regional agreements with 111 countries. Trade agreements became an integral instrument of European foreign policy, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Some types of agreements were intended to stabilize the region after 1989. Europe Agreements were intended to prepare bordering Eastern European countries for eventual accession into the EU. They involved bilateral agreements between each other and with the EU to reduce tariffs, develop uniform rules of origin, EU-consistent regulatory approaches to services, and common treatment of standards as well as transition rules in sectors such as agriculture. These efforts culminated with the full admission of 10 new countries into the EU in 2004 – which is why the number of RTAs registered with the WTO fell for the first time ever.

Euro-Mediterranean Agreements were intended to build bilateral trade relations between neighbors, with the objective of forming a NAFTA-like free trade area by 2010. To date, bilateral agreements have been signed with Tunisia (1995), Israel (1995), Morocco (1996), Jordan (1997), the Palestinian Authority (1997), Algeria (2001), Egypt (2001), and Lebanon (2002).

Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) with the Western Balkans, Russia, and the CIS were designed to help promote stability on the border of the EU, and in the case of Russia, expand trade. The EU has been providing technical assistance to these governments to help implement the institutional reforms that are part of the PCAs. Two new agreements have been added to this list since 2000.

Free Trade Agreements with South Africa (2000), Mexico (2000), and Chile (2003) are designed to open markets and secure trade. Agreements with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Common Market for the South (MERCOSUR) are under active negotiation. These embody free trade provisions for a range of products as well as provisions to liberalize at least some services.

The EU agreements govern services trade in addition to trade in goods. The agreements with Mexico and Chile provide for specific liberalization commitments in the financial sector over and above those included in GATS, with the Chilean agreement adding telecommunications and maritime services. The South African agreement alludes to possible services liberalization, but without commitment. The EU agreements differ in important respects from the U.S. agreements in that they are generally less comprehensive, provide less market access in agriculture, and do not provide for investor-state dispute resolution.

Text V.

World Trade

World trade growth averaged 10.2 percent in 2004, reflecting rapid increases in industrial production and investment activity. The expansion in trade volumes in 2004 is reminiscent of the increase observed in 2000 and mirrors the rapid recovery in industrial production that began to take shape in the second half of 2003 and continued into 2004. More than 20 percent of the increase in world merchandise trade volumes was represented by China.

Trade in raw materials and investment goods was particularly strong. Robust demand for raw materials was an important factor underlying the trade expansion in a number of developing countries. Fast-growing global investment expenditures were particularly important in spurring export demand in countries such as Germany and Japan that specialize in the fabrication of machinery and other physical capital.

As a whole, developing countries have grown their share in world markets by about 19 percent up from 19 to 23 percent since 2000. Excluding China, the improvement in the export share of low- and middle-income countries has been more modest (from 16 to 17 percent), although developing countries in the South Asia and Europe and Central Asia regions have increased their market shares considerably. Other regions either maintained their market share (the rest of the Eastern Asia and Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa) or lost market share (Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean).

Major imbalances in the world trading environment persisted during 2004 and will likely continue to play a large role in 2005–06. The U.S. current account deficit reached 5.7 percent of GDP in the second quarter of 2004, as American consumption and investment volumes exceeded domestic production by a wide margin .The expansion in the trade deficit since the mid-1990s has been the main factor behind the rise in the U.S. current account deficit. Barring a substantial increase in domestic savings by, for example, a tightening of fiscal policy, downward pressure on the U.S. dollar is likely to resume as U.S. foreign borrowing requirements remain high, and the already large amounts of external debt continue to accumulate.

Failure to address the twin U.S. deficits could have significant impacts on developing countries, especially if that failure leads to an increase in protectionist behavior. This is especially relevant because the substantial improvements in living standards, wages, and incomes in many upper-lower and middle-income countries have been the result of expanding their world market share in manufactures. An increase in protectionism could halt these countries’ progress and deny other poor countries the same avenue to development. Moreover, a retreat from recent efforts to reduce trade barriers or a failure to make further progress – especially concerning agricultural subsidies – could have substantial negative consequences on many of the world’s poorest countries.