Download or read book Nontariff barriers Africa faces what did the Uruguay Round accomplish and what remains to be done written by Azita Amjadi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nontariff Barriers Africa Faces written by Alexander J. Yeats and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the major accompl ...
Download or read book Nontariff Barriers Africa Faces What Did the Uruguay Round Accomplish and What Remains to be Done written by Alexander Yeats and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: March 1995 Perhaps the major accomplishment of the Uruguay Round is agreements reached on nontariff barriers (NTBs). All NTBs imposed under the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) will be phased out over 10 years, and all voluntary export restraints will be abolished. OECD countries' NTBs on agricultural goods will be converted to tariffs and then reduced by an average of 36 percent. Agreement was also reached on limiting subsidies and other agricultural export incentives. As a result, the profile of OECD nontariff protection Africa faces will change dramatically. Formerly, about 11 percent of all Sub-Saharan Africa exports encountered NTBs; now this ratio will fall to about 2 percent. Formerly, 83 percent of Reunion's pre-Uruguay Round exports were affected by NTBs; now none will. Some African countries, however, will be largely unaffected by the Uruguay Round's accomplishments. No NTBs on energy products were liberalized so coverage ratios for Angola, Congo, ad Nigeria are still high - but the measures applied (largely quantitative restrictions and special import charges) apparently do not raise the cost of imports significantly. The exclusion of fish from the agreement on agriculture also limited the potential benefits to countries like the Seychelles. Others simply faced no (or few) nontariff restrictions before the negotiations. The new developments are regarded as positive for developing countries as a group, although some countries may incur losses. Trade in textiles and clothing has been closely regulated for three decades through MFA quotas. Phasing these restrictions out will subject African countries to aggressive international competition. Whether they can maintain a viable textile and clothing export sector depends on whether they can achieve reforms aimed at cost-cutting. The MFA liberalization is heavily backloaded, with roughly half the restrictions being removed at the end of 10 years, so there is ample time for adjustment. Africa should also face more vigorous competition on footwear and ferrous metals when voluntary restraints on some other developing countries are lifted. Any losses in market share that may occur, however, may not reflect welfare changes, especially if African exports were heavily subsidized. Agriculture could also be harmed unless appropriate domestic policies are adopted. The tariffication (and reduction) of NTBs, along with limits on export subsidies, could raise international prices on some staples, which would hurt net food importers. Reforms to ensure that prices paid to domestic producers increase in line with international prices (thus stimulating a local supply response) could limit increases in the food import bill. In the post-Uruguay Round world, it is increasingly important to remove domestic constraints that prevent local producers from taking full advantage of new export opportunities. Unfinished business includes further initiatives needed to address NTBs on fish, chemicals and energy products which the Round bypassed. Stricter regulations on safeguards and the use of antidumping duties are also needed to ensure that these measures are not substituted for those eliminated. But much of the unfinished business involves domestic reform needed to ensure that African countries can react to new export opportunities and competitive challenges.
Download or read book Did External Barriers Cause the Marginalization of Sub Saharan Africa in World Trade written by Azita Amjadi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Management Programme Paper No. 20. Reviews the specific actions that municipalities and city governments may take in contributing to urban poverty reduction. The paper highlights example of issues, options, and constraints that urban governments must address in fighting poverty. It focuses on municipalities and other city-level government entities as a critical institutional level of intervention. Other language editions available: French--Stock No. 13814 (ISBN 0-8213-3814-5); English--Stock No. 13716 (ISBN 0-8213-3716-5).
Download or read book Trade Barriers Facing Developing Countries written by Alexander J. Yeats and published by Springer. This book was released on 1979-06-17 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Open Economies Work Better written by Francis Ng and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Trade Facilitation Capacity Needs written by Gbadebo Odularu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive analysis of both national and regional trade facilitation capacities, issues, challenges and lessons, with a special interest in sustainably advancing West Africa’s regional trade facilitation agenda. It examines the contributions of trade facilitation towards enhancing regional integration and economic expansion in the face of increasing non-tariff barriers that highly characterises West African agri-food and non-agricultural markets. The authors recommend new conceptual frameworks, appropriate initiatives, and workable policy recipes towards enhancing West Africa’s trade facilitation agenda as well as the regional economic transformation trajectory in the face of the ongoing African Continental Free Trade Agreements (AfCFTA). The book underscores the geopolitics, opportunities and challenges that confront West Africa in the increasingly dynamic regional trade facilitation policy space. Readers will learn how West Africa can improve its regional trade facilitation game amidst emerging capacity challenges.
Download or read book Did Domestic Policies Marginalize Africa in International Trade written by Alexander J. Yeats and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Bank Technical Paper No. 344. Presents and analyzes a wealth of data on levels of and trends in health status, delivery of services, and financing in each of the former Soviet states of Central Asia. The paper examines health care reform from the perspectives of macroeconomic constraints, the demographic and epidemiological transitions facing each country, the underlying structure and financing of their health systems, and what they have inherited from the old Soviet system.
Download or read book The African Continental Free Trade Agreement Welfare Gains Estimates from a General Equilibrium Model written by Mr.Lisandro Abrego and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-06-07 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 2018, representatives of member countries of the African Union signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. This agreement provides a framework for trade liberalization in goods and services and is expected to eventually cover all African countries. Using a multi-country, multi-sector general equilibrium model based on Costinot and Rodriguez-Clare (2014), we estimate the welfare effects of the AfCFTA for 45 countries in Africa. Three different model specifications—comprising both perfect competition and monopolistic competition—are used. Simulations include full elimination of import tariffs and partial but substantial reduction in non-tariff barriers (NTBs). Results reveal significant potential welfare gains from trade liberalization in Africa. As intra-regional import tariffs in the continent are already low, the bulk of these gains come from lowering NTBs. Overall gains for the continent are broadly similar under the three model specifications used, with considerable variation of potential welfare gains across countries in all model structures.
Download or read book Non tariff Barriers written by Andrew Mold and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Did External Barriers Cause the Marginalization of Sub Saharan Africa in World Trade written by Alexander Yeats and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: March 1996 Sub-Saharan African countries' policies contributed more to that region's 30-year decline in world trade than did OECD trade barriers, but policy options available to the OECD countries could improve the environment for African exports. Highest priority should be given to policies favoring African agricultural exports whose growth could greatly alleviate the extreme rural poverty in Africa. OECD trade barriers were not a significant factor in Sub-Saharan Africa's declining position in world trade between the mid-1950s and 1990. Far more detrimental were the African countries' own policies, including those affecting transport costs. It is essential that African countries adopt reforms aimed at achieving cost competitiveness. Anti-competitive cargo reservation policies in many African countries help inflate international transport costs, which eat up a disproportionate share of African countries' foreign exchange earnings. Deregulation of international shipping and the promotion of competitive shipping services, together with improvements in transport infrastructure, could significantly reduce freight costs. But policy options available to the OECD countries could also improve the external environment for, and competitive position of, African exports. Policies involving preferences should be viewed as a step toward general trade liberalization. Highest priority should be given to policies favoring agricultural exports. Among policy options the OECD countries should consider: * Regional arrangements such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement discriminate against African and other developing countries. Policy initiatives are needed to at least place them on an equal basis with OECD members in these arrangements -- especially for labor-intensive products. * African exports are concentrated in primary commodities. When further processing is suitable, OECD preferences should be extended to all stages of the processing chain. * Given the extreme rural poverty in Africa, measures are needed to reduce protection against African food exports. One option would be to extend (ceiling-free) generalized system of preferences for tariffied agricultural nontariff barriers. * Ceilings and quotas should be eliminated from industrial-country preference schemes to be made consistent with unrestricted intra-OECD preferences extended under free trade agreements. * OECD countries could also provide technical, finance, development, and policy analysis assistance aimed at alleviating Africa's international transport problems, especially for landlocked African countries. This paper -- a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department -- is part of a larger effort in the department to identify barriers to developing countries' exports and assist in their removal.
Download or read book Non Tariff Barriers to Trade in the East African Community written by Marcellin Mugabe and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been argued that current regional integration efforts by East African States will foster economic development by attracting domestic and foreign private investments through the reduction or removal of tariffs and other barriers to trade. However, it is generally acknowledged that despite the reduction or removal of tariffs on trade, if freight costs and procedures remain prohibitive, they will hamper investment and trade flows by reducing returns on exported outputs as well as on imported inputs. The present study assesses the extent to which transportation costs constitute a barrier to trade within the East African Community and how they act as an implicit tax on production and imported investment inputs. The study focuses on road transit transport destined to Rwanda from the seaport of Mombasa through the Northern Transport Corridor. Findings of this study are useful for both academicians and policy makers who seek to understand issues at stake with regard to the current economic and political integration process in the East African Region which could serve as a lesson for the entire African Continent.
Download or read book Did External Barriers Cause the Marginalization of Sub Saharan Africa in World Trade written by Azita Amjadi and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fostering Trade in Africa written by Gbadebo O.A. Odularu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses trade relations and facilitation issues at both the regional and the continental African level, highlighting the increasing business opportunities and challenges that confront Africa in the digital age. It also examines the effects of trade policies and other policy instruments on Africa’s economic development and presents workable policy measures for a more business-friendly ecosystem. Discussing various topics, including trade relations between African countries, African and international trade agreements, and trade liberalization policies, the book appeals to scholars of economics, business and management as well as professionals and policymakers interested in fostering free trade and sustainable business development in Africa.
Download or read book The African Continental Free Trade Area Potential Economic Impact and Challenges written by Mr.Lisandro Abrego and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2020-05-13 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political momentum towards Africa-wide free trade has been intensifying. In March 2018, over 40 countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. Once fully implemented, the AfCFTA is expected to cover all 55 African countries, with a combined GDP of about US$2.2 trillion. This SDN takes stock of recent trade developments in Sub-Saharan Africa and assesses the potential benefits and costs of the AfCFTA, as well as challenges to its successful implementation. In addition to increased trade flows both in existing and new products, the AfCFTA has the potential to generate substantial economic benefits for African countries. These benefits include higher income arising from increased efficiency and productivity from improved resource allocation, higher cross-border investment flows, and technology transfers. Besides lowering import tariffs, to ensure these benefits, African countries will need reduce other trade barriers by making more efficient their customs procedures, reducing their wide infrastructure gaps, and improving their business climates. At the same time, policy measures should be taken to mitigate the differential impact of trade liberalization on certain groups as resources are reallocated in the economy and activities migrate to locations with comparatively lower costs.
Download or read book What Shoprite and Woolworths Can Tell Us about Non tariff Barriers written by Nick Charalambides and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper discusses the impact of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in the Southern African Development Community region. It draws on the growing body of literature on NTBs pertaining to regional trade in Southern and Eastern Africa, but importantly it supplements this with the experience of the private sector in the region. It reviews the current processes and achievements in addressing NTBs within Southern Africa. Practical measures are proposed to facilitate the removal of NTBs within Southern Africa, informed by the lessons from other regions. The paper focuses particularly on how to address those NTBs to regional trade that are the result of inappropriate design and implementation. These include, but are not necessarily limited to: licensing rules, import permits, standards (as well as their implementation) and customs procedures. It does not look at those barriers that are overtly trade restricting by intention (for example, antidumping duties, quantitative restrictions, import levies). The former subset of NTBs is likely to be less transparent but more prevalent and representative of the constraints Southern African traders face in selling merchandise across borders on a day-to-day basis.
Download or read book Nontariff Measures and International Trade written by John Christopher Beghin and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-11-28 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nontariff Measures and International Trade includes 20 chapters authored by John Beghin and co-authors over the last 20 years on the economics of quality-standard like nontariff measures in the context of international trade. This book provides a coherent and comprehensive treatment of these nontariff measures, from their measurement to their effects on trade and welfare. In Part I, the authors use different perspectives to make the case that, unlike tariffs, quality-standard like nontariff measures are complex to measure and analyze and do not easily lead to general policy prescriptions. Then, Part II contains contributions on measurements of welfare and trade effects of nontariff measures, accounting for potential market imperfections. Part III presents chapters on the potential protectionism of nontariff measures when they are used to favor some economic agents over society. The last part presents cases studies of nontariff measures in different industries, markets, and countries.
