Trade Facilitation Beyond the Multilateral Trade Negotiations

Trade Facilitation Beyond the Multilateral Trade Negotiations PDF Author:
Publisher: UN
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This publication brings together the main research outputs produced by the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), and its members and partners, between April 2006 and January 2007. The book includes 10 chapters that introduce the concept of trade and facilitation beyond the ongoing multilateral trade negotiations, provide an analysis of regional trade facilitation initiatives, describe rules of origin in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), present customs valuation in developing countries, and give broader perspective of trade facilitation and recommendations on arriving at a meaningful multilateral agreement on trade facilitation.

Trade Facilitation Beyond the Multilateral Trade Negotiations

Trade Facilitation Beyond the Multilateral Trade Negotiations PDF Author:
Publisher: UN
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
This publication brings together the main research outputs produced by the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), and its members and partners, between April 2006 and January 2007. The book includes 10 chapters that introduce the concept of trade and facilitation beyond the ongoing multilateral trade negotiations, provide an analysis of regional trade facilitation initiatives, describe rules of origin in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), present customs valuation in developing countries, and give broader perspective of trade facilitation and recommendations on arriving at a meaningful multilateral agreement on trade facilitation.

Trade Facilitation in the Multilateral Trading System

Trade Facilitation in the Multilateral Trading System PDF Author: Hao Wu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429886748
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Negotiations on trade facilitation were concluded at the WTO 9th Ministerial Conference in 2013, and the Agreements on Trade Facilitation (TFA), therefore, became the first fully multilateral agreement in WTO history. Since then, trade facilitation has been in the limelight on the stage of the world trading system. During recent years, the TFA has been consistently on the agenda of the summits of G20, G7, and APEC. The Agreement has come into force and shall be implemented on a global scale. As a result, the WTO members shall be prepared to translate the Agreement into their domestic legislation, which will involve a series of reforms in trade laws and policies. There are extensive voices demanding a comprehensive expatiation on trade facilitation and the TFA. It is essential to systematically delve into the genesis of trade facilitation, revisit the course where the TFA came into being, and analyse the well-turned legalese of the TFA. This book meets this demand. This book is path-breaking in these aspects: it expounds on the rationales for trade facilitation and the significance of constituting an international accord on trade facilitation; it restores the one-century track of the international community’s talks on trade facilitation, from the times of the League of Nations to the WTO era; it reveals how the WTO negotiating mechanisms enabled the TFA to be nailed down, which would be enlightening for trade diplomats engaged in other WTO negotiations; and it provides an in-depth commentary on the TFA articles, which will help stakeholders more accurately understand and implement the Agreement. This book will be especially valuable for government officials and policy-makers, trade practitioners, lawyers, advisers, and scholars interested in international economic law, WTO law, international trade, international relations, and international development studies.

Asian Free Trade Agreements And Wto Compatibility: Goods, Services, Trade Facilitation And Economic Cooperation

Asian Free Trade Agreements And Wto Compatibility: Goods, Services, Trade Facilitation And Economic Cooperation PDF Author: Shintaro Hamanaka
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814460427
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
It is an appropriate time to rethink the relationship between trade regionalism and multilateralism in the Asian context as we witness the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Asia. In the 1980s and 1990s, many scholars and policymakers believed that Asian integration was market-based, rather than legal-based, and that Asian integration would never be codified through agreements. Yet today, there are a large number of FTAs signed and under negotiation in Asia.This book investigates the appropriate relationship between regionalism and multilateralism, with a special reference to recent FTAs in Asia. It is undeniable that past trade multilateralism-regionalism debates centered on the trade-in-goods aspect. However, the majority of recent FTAs in Asia cover issues beyond trade-in-goods and tariff liberalization, such as trade facilitation, services, and economic cooperation. While the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XXIV governs regional integration initiatives in trade in goods, there is no (or at most a thin) World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement that stipulates the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism in issue areas other than goods.Thus, this study carefully considers the meaning of “WTO-compatible FTAs” by distinguishing “WTO consistency” and “WTO friendliness”, going beyond GATT Article XXIV debates and proposes a general framework for examining the openness of regionalism in various issue areas by identifying tree-type questions to distinguish several types of exclusiveness. It then specifically asks the following questions: Can Asian FTAs that cover several issues be considered multilateralism friendly? How does the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism differ between trade-in-goods and non-goods issue areas? What are policies that might reduce the exclusiveness of regional initiatives? The study concludes by listing counterintuitive policy suggestions to make FTAs truly WTO compatible. The book also includes a comprehensive list of FTAs in Asia and several WTO Agreements relating to trade regionalism.

The WTO Doha Trade Round - Unlocking the Negotiations and Beyond

The WTO Doha Trade Round - Unlocking the Negotiations and Beyond PDF Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498338259
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
This note provides an update on the status of Doha negotiations and an outlook on significant non-Doha trade issues that should be tackled in the near future. Section II investigates what has stalled progress on Doha since the IMF Executive Board was last briefed in October 2008 (World Bank and IMF, 2008). Section III illustrates that notable gains would come from a Doha conclusion, both from actual new market access and--perhaps more crucially--from the added trade security that Doha would bring. However, Section IV suggests that the time may now have come to devote more resources to discussing important non-Doha issues at the WTO. Section V concludes that the Fund should continue to support both a Doha conclusion as well as the important work on non-Doha issues.

The WTO and the Multilateral Trading System

The WTO and the Multilateral Trading System PDF Author: Bhagirath Lal Das
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This Book charts the evolution of the multilateral trading system over the last half-century and explores the future outlook for the intergovernmental body that constitutes its institutional base and which is responsible for governing the conduct of global commerce, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The author, a leading authority on international trade, identifies the distinct trends that have characterised the historical progression of the system, from the formulation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 through the WTO's inception in 1995 to the present day. He examines how the GATT/WTO framework has traditionally been used by the major industrial nations as a vehicle to pursue their narrow economic and political interests, at the expense of Third World countries' development prospects. This North-South imbalance continues to pervade the multilateral trade regime today, in the form of inherent inequities in the WTO agreements and their implementation, and attempts to insert potentially damaging new issues into the WTO agenda. Further, this book traces the intimate links between these substantive deficiencies and the WTO's murky decision-making processes, which are dominated by its developed-country members to the detriment of the developing countries.

Trade in the 21st Century

Trade in the 21st Century PDF Author: Bernard M. Hoekman
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729057
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Despite troubled trade negotiations, global trade—and trade policy—will thrive in the twenty-first century, but with a bow to the past. Is the multilateral trading order of the twentieth century a historical artifact? Was the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 the high point of multilateral cooperation on trade? This new volume, edited by Bernard M. Hoekman and Ernesto Zedillo, assesses the relevance of the WTO in the context of the rise of China and the United States' turn toward unilateral protectionism. The contributors adopt a historical perspective to discuss changes in global trade policy trends, adducing lessons from the past to help understand current trade tensions. Topics include responses to U.S. protectionism under the Trump administration, the policy dimensions of trade in services and the rise of the digital economy, how to strengthen the WTO to better negotiate new rules of the game and adjudicate disputes, managing China's integration into the global trade system, and the implications of global value chains for economic development policies. By reflecting on past episodes of protectionism and how they were resolved, Trade in the 21st Century provides both context and guidance on how trade challenges can be addressed in the coming decades.

Trade Facilitation

Trade Facilitation PDF Author: Patricia Sourdin
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 085793743X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
'In the last decade trade costs have been a subject of intense study in the international trade literature. Richard Pomfret and Patricia Sourdin provide a timely and accessible summary of what we know so far. Their comprehensive review of what we have learned is paired here with important new research in the area of trade facilitation. This is important reading for policymakers interested in international trade and trade-related economic development.' Russell Hillberry, University of Melbourne, Australia 'Few topics are as important in international economics as trade costs. Surprisingly, there are few studies that explicitly address that issue in detail. This makes the book of great value to both professional economists and policy makers worldwide helping them to understand the different concepts of trade costs, their determinants and how to reduce them using trade facilitation measures. The book is very well written and a must read for any person that has an interest in trade costs!' Matthias Busse, Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany This up-to-date and informative book provides a comprehensive treatment of the costs of trading across borders and of trade facilitation policies. While traditional tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade have been reduced, international trade continues to involve higher costs in money and time than domestic trade. These include not only transport costs, that are determined by distance and commodity characteristics, but also at-the-border and behind-the-border costs which can be reduced by appropriate policies. Research on trade costs has flourished since the turn of the century, and this book by Patricia Sourdin and Richard Pomfret, takes stock of our increased knowledge of the nature and magnitude of trade costs, analysing why they are high and how they can be reduced to increase the gains from trade. Trade Facilitation will appeal to economists and policymakers at the national level and in multinational institutions, researchers and postgraduate students interested in international trade and trade policy, as well as students in international business.

A WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation

A WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation PDF Author: Mena Hassan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
It is becoming more evident that better market access conditions alone, do not translate directly into increased trade opportunities for developing countries. With the burgeoning trend of lowering tariff barriers, it is "non-tariff measures" and "behind the border" barriers that are gaining ground in the trade policy debate. Trade facilitation reforms aim to lower transaction costs for businesses and help expedite the clearance and release of goods across borders. As part of the current round of multilateral trade negotiations, Members of the World Trade Organization are negotiating new commitments in the area of trade facilitation. Through its three different essays, this research tries to first examine this new multilateral agreement from a political economy perspective and address how it is neither a classic WTO Agreement nor a classic case of winners and losers in the WTO jargon. Second, with some thirty trade facilitation measures on the table, the objective of this research is to quantify the potential gains in trade performance from the implementation of this agreement. This research uses a new and original database of forty diverse developing countries which assesses their compliance level with a set of trade facilitation proposed measures. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, this research assesses the impact of five trade facilitation indicators on their trade flows. Finally, despite the positive relationship between the economic benefits of trade liberalization and trade facilitation, implementation of a WTO Accord on Trade Facilitation in developing countries will face many challenges related to the domestic politics of trade and institutional factors that policymakers need to consider for any successful implementation to take place.

Most-favoured-nation Treatment

Most-favoured-nation Treatment PDF Author: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The publication contains an explanation of Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment and some of the key issues that arise in its negotiation, particularly the scope and application of MFN treatment to the liberalization and protection of foreign investors in recent treaty practice. The paper provides policy options as regards the traditional application of MFN treatment and identifies reactions by States to the unexpected broad use of MFN treatment, and provides several drafting options, such as specifying or narrowing down the scope of application of MFN treatment to certain types of activities, clarifying the nature of "treatment" under the IIA, clarifying the comparison that an arbitral tribunal needs to undertake as well as a qualification of the comparison "in like circumstances" or excluding its use in investor-State cases.

Regionalism and the Multilateral Trading System

Regionalism and the Multilateral Trading System PDF Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Publisher: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are increasingly portrayed as a threat to the free global exchange of goods and services. They involve an ever-growing share of world trade. The proportion of world trade covered by such accords is expected to grow from 43% today to 55% in 2005, if all regional agreements now in discussion are actually put into place. Moreover, in the event of a log jam in the ongoing Doha round of multilateral trade talks under the WTO, many WTO members are ready to place even greater emphasis on regional initiatives. Against this backdrop, this study compares rule-making provisions in regional trade agreements with those of the WTO in individual chapters covering ten specific areas: services, labour mobility, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, government procurement, intellectual property rights, contingency protection, environment, and rules of origin. Three main questions are addressed: How far do RTAs go beyond existing multilateral trade rules in the WTO? Do they present a divergence from or a convergence with the multilateral system? What are the effects on non-members? It emerges clearly from the ten papers that precisely because they are both a sub-set of liberalisation and an exception to the most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle, RTAs have both positive and negative impacts. How these positive and negative elements play out is, accordingly, a central theme of this study. The principal purpose of this book is to clarify the relationship between regionalism and the multilateral trading system. It also aims to provide an analytical framework for WTO members' ongoing consideration of how best to manage that relationship and how to foster the complementarities between RTAs and the multilateral system.