Market Access and Preferential Trading Schemes: Evidence from Selected Developed and Developing Countries

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Conforti ◽  
Luca Salvatici
1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-189
Author(s):  
Sohail J. Malik

In the period 1965 to 1985, the per capita consumption in the developing world went up by almost 70 percent. Yet one billion of the people in the developing countries today are living in poverty [World Development Report (1990)]. Despite the growth in incomes and consumption, the problem of poverty is enormous. In most development models a large reserve of low-paid workers (often rural based) is seen as a precondition for industrialization (often urban based), which in turn is seen as synonymous with development. It is the exploitation of these workers to generate the surpluses necessary for growth in the urban growth centres that forms the basis of policy in most developing countries. The very processes that generate this growth also make these workers the most vulnerable to poverty. And if stagnation or recession sets in, the results are disasterous. The book under review makes an effective contribution to focusing attention on the issues of urban poverty and the labour market.


2000 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Hindley ◽  
Heinz Hauser ◽  
Ulrich Hiemenz

AbstractThis economic policy forum addresses the subject “New Challenges for the WTO: Do we need a Millennium Round?”. Brian Hindley has serious doubts whether the Millennium-Round should be revived. While the EU suggests that an agreement on competition policy should be essential for new multilateral trade negotiations, the Departement of Justice which administers competition policy in the US is less enthusiastic about the idea. The same applies to rules on investment. The author discusses both aspects of the EU’s extended agenda proposals and comes to the conclusion, that what is left is a rag bag. A bag that contains some useful issues, some dubious ones, some downright bad ones, but without enough content to fuel a credible multilateral trade negotiation. His conclusion is, that perhaps the case for multilateral agreements on competition policy and investment can be strengthened and if the Commission can do that, it should. The case for a Millennium Round based on the extended agenda is weak.In the opinion of Heinz Hauser, a new Millennium Round has a high potential to fail. The author discusses his hypothesis in three steps. First, he draws attention to the question, which conclusions can be seen from Seattle. Second, he analyses the political environment for a hypothetically new round. He wants to substantiate that the expected results of a new round would be more harmful than beneficial for a liberal world trade arrangement. In a third step Hauser makes clear that the compliance with the committments form the Uruguay Round is still unsatisfactory.The paper by Ulrich Hiemenz argues that a better integration of developing countries into the multilateral trading system is a key challenge at the beginning of the new millennium. He emphasises that a new round of multilateral trade negotiations launched under the auspices of the WTO would provide a window of opportunity for all participating countries to improve their living standards through better market access, greater domestic efficiency and higher productivity. Developing countries could even benefit more from further trade liberalisation than industrialised countries, provided they implement the domestic policy reforms necessary to capture these benefits.


2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Damodaran

By virtue of their complexity and sensitivity, TRQs have naturally emerged as one of the key issues in the WTO agricultural negotiations. TRQs form an uneasy compromise between market access and tariffication. TRQs applying countries with a-strong track record ofp rotectionism have a difficult problem at hand, when it comes to designing these mechanisms. Indeed the task of balancing national interests with international obligations on market access is a key challenge to trade policy formulation in the developing world. TRQs that meet the criteria of uniformity, equity and transparency may achieve WTO compatibility, though it is doubtful whether they would serve the economic development priorities of the developing countries. This paper attempts to look into the prospects and options before India in designing WTO compatible TRQ regimes for agricultural commodities. The paper also examines key issues concerning TRQs that need to be taken up in the forthcoming round ofWTO negotiations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Schott

Over the last 60 years, the multilateral management of trade through the GATT and subsequently through the WTO has been led by the United States and Europe. Since the turn of the new millennium, however, developing countries have increasingly used their leverage to insist that talks on agriculture receive priority attention, deny the inclusion of investment and competition policy on the negotiating agenda, and block agreement on negotiating modalities for agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA). Cooperation between the United States and the European Union is still essential, but no longer sufficient, for successful multilateral negotiations. Specifically, the “BRICKs” (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Korea) are likely to be pivotal in directing the course and contributing to the success or failure of the WTO.


2014 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 1450016 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Victoria LOTTICI ◽  
Carlos GALPERÍN ◽  
Julia HOPPSTOCK

The environment is increasingly being used to justify protectionist measures that enjoy greater social legitimacy. Over the last few years, new issues have emerged in relation to this, and three of them are analysed in this paper: green growth and green economy, climate change response measures, and the liberalization of environmental goods and services. These new issues are being used both to apply barriers to goods and services coming from developing countries and to improve the market access of developed countries' exports of industrial products. All this amounts to "green protectionism" which is aimed at improving the trade balance of developed countries, particularly in relation to developing countries. In the many fora where these topics are being discussed, Argentina states that these issues should neither result in green protectionism nor encourage policies that constitute disguised restrictions on international trade, which is inconsistent with the multilateral trading system and with international environmental law, and in particular with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.


2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
BERNARD HOEKMAN

Despite recurring rounds of trade liberalization under GATT/WTO auspices, complemented by unilateral reforms, many developing countries have not been able to integrate into the world economy. This paper argues that, from the perspective of the poorest countries, a multi-pronged strategy is required to strengthen the global trading system and that much of the agenda must be addressed outside the WTO. The most important contribution the WTO can make from a development perspective is to improve market access conditions – for goods and services – and ensure that trade rules are useful to developing countries. Enhancing trade capacity requires concerted action outside the WTO (‘aid for trade’) as well as unilateral actions by both industrialized and developing countries to reduce anti-trade biases.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Ruth Kelly

In the light of the disparity of bargaining leverage in FTA negotiations between the EU or the U.S. and developing countries, this article presents a legal mechanism to maintain the status quo, that is, the acquis of current trade arrangements. On the basis of the test established in the EC-Tariff Preferences case, it is argued that the Enabling Clause allows for differentiation between developing countries on the basis of their levels of intra-regional trade. A scheme is then constructed which allows the EU and the U.S. to differentiate in favor of current beneficiaries of non-reciprocal trade preference schemes in this way. This allows the EU and the U.S. to maintain the acquis without making radical changes to their trade and development policy. Where the status quo is an option, developing countries involved in FTA negotiations would have a feasible best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) to replace the current alternative of a significant reduction of market access to the EU or the U.S. While the maintenance of the status quo is up to the industrialized country in question, given that the trade preferences are unilateral in nature, the scheme constructed debunks the myth that there is a legal requirement to replace the current arrangements by reciprocal trade agreements in the absence of a waiver.


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