Development and building trade capacity

The emergence of e-commerce is driving important changes in the ways of conducting international trade. It has become clear that improvements in trade facilitation implementation should be supported by electronic systems. Through a comparative study of a number of reports issued by international organizations – the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank – on topics of e-commerce logistics and trade facilitation we examined the status and performance of Jordan Oman and Hong Kong China. Based on this analysis Hong Kong China shows one of the best practices of modern trade facilitation and customs and we found that governmental willingness is influential in expediting trade facilitation provisions. Jordan and Oman recently made trade reforms to improve trade facilitation but they still need to bridge the gap between policy and actual practice in all governmental organizations in terms of trade facilitation and e-commerce as well as build citizens’ capacity. By improving the implementation of trade facilitation measures and increasing e-commerce capacity as Hong Kong China

The use of global input-output tables and the creation of Trade in Value-Added (TiVA) statistics has greatly improved our understanding of the fragmentation of global production through value chains. However their application requires a number of assumptions that in practice typically understate the degree of interconnectedness. TiVA estimates implicitly assume identical production functions across firms within an industry when in reality production functions differ considerably. Typically larger (and foreign-owned) firms tend to be more trade oriented than smaller (and domestically-owned) firms. As a result TiVA statistics underestimate the import content of exports for the economy as a whole a key indicator characterizing global production. Moreover TiVA analyses are based on basic price concepts which provide an appropriate view of production through value chains but are less well equipped to analyse consumption particularly as they exclude significant distribution margins (in particular retail and wholesale activities often including marketing activities and brands) which add value at the end of the chain. This can distort analyses using “smile curves” which show the distance from final demand of different sectors within value chains and in turn understate the scale of jobs supported by trade.

This report consists of market access analyses for each of the 12 least-developed countries (LDCs) that are on the path towards graduation: Angola and Sao Tomé and Principe in Africa; Bangladesh Bhutan Lao People's Democratic Republic Myanmar Nepal and Timor-Leste in Asia; and Kiribati the Solomon Islands Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific. It should be read in conjunction with the report Trade impacts of LDC graduation which provides an assessment of the trade impacts of graduation in terms of LDCs' participation in the WTO market access opportunities and development cooperation.

This chapter analyses the impact of the internet on global value chains (GVCs) in Africa. We investigate the effect of internet adoption on forward participation and backward participation of African countries in GVCs. We conduct the estimations using country-level data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Eora GVC database and firm-level data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey. We test whether internet adoption facilitates the participation of Africa in GVCs at the country level and the firm level. We find that internet use and internet infrastructure are more important for African firms and African countries in terms of forward GVC participation. To conclude empirical results show that the internet increases GVC participation in Africa. African countries and firms need to improve internet infrastructure in order to make the best of integration into GVCs.

Despite a steady decline in its share of GDP and exports the agricultural sector continues to play an important role in African economies and in Senegal in particular where it employs approximately 60 per cent of the labour force. It accounts for a quarter of national public investment but contributed only 6 per cent to GDP between 2000 and 2009 (Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances du Sénégal 2011). Horticulture is one of the promising sectors as can be observed not only from a rapid growth strategy but also from many national agricultural development strategies because of the vast range of products included and the high level of income it generates for producers especially in urban and suburban areas. In addition Senegal has both a favourable climate and a good geographical position for the export of tropical off-season products. These factors have enabled the country to increase the production and export of fruit and vegetables significantly. Horticultural production has experienced a boom over the last ten years increasing from about 150000 to 228000 metric tons between 1992 and 2000 and to 429000 metric tons in 2007 an increase of 5.5 per cent per year. In 2008 the production of vegetables (excluding potatoes and fresh tomatoes) recorded a growth rate of 8 per cent and the production of fruit experienced a growth rate of 81 per cent. Accordingly exports have increased from 6175 metric tons in 1995 to 9000 metric tons in 2000 and 31000 metric tons in 2009 an increase of about 5.5 per cent per year. The main target markets for exports are neighbouring countries and the European Union (Ndoye-Niane 2004; Senegal National Agency of Statistics and Demography 2006–2010).

In recent years there has been an intensification of the long-running debate on the effects of trade integration. This debate has focused largely on the impact of trade in advanced economies which has risked diverting attention away from the impact of trade on people’s lives in developing countries and especially the extreme poor. This volume brings together new research using a range of different analytical approaches that examines how the extreme poor have fared following trade liberalization in various developing countries and regions and the challenges that poor people face in benefitting from trade.

Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2014 analyse quatre tendances qui ont marqué la décennie écoulée: i) l’essor du monde en développement ii) l’expansion des chaînes de valeur mondiales iii) la hausse des prix des produits de base et l’importance croissante des exportations de ces produits et iv) la mondialisation des chocs macroéconomiques. En analysant ces tendances le rapport examine comment elles ont redéfini le rôle du commerce dans la promotion du développement tout en mettant en évidence les obstacles qui continuent d’entraver l’expansion du développement mondial. En s’appuyant sur cette analyse le rapport montre comment les mécanismes du système de l’OMC ont contribué aux progrès récents de nombreux pays en développement en leur permettant de s’adapter aux quatre tendances d’en tirer parti et d’atténuer les risques qui en découlent.

A partir del Modelo de Comercio Mundial de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) un modelo de equilibrio general computable recursivo y dinámico examinamos las posibles repercusiones futuras de las innovaciones tecnológicas en forma de robotización y uso de la inteligencia artificial la terciarización del proceso de producción y la disminución de los costos del comercio debido al aumento de los mercados y plataformas en línea en el comercio de los países en desarrollo. Según las simulaciones los cambios tecnológicos impulsarán un mayor crecimiento del comercio como consecuencia de la caída de los costos del comercio y el uso más intensivo de los servicios de la tecnología de la información y las comunicaciones (TIC). En promedio de aquí a 2030 el crecimiento del comercio mundial aumentaría en 2 puntos porcentuales al año gracias a las tecnologías digitales. Además el crecimiento del comercio de los países en desarrollo se incrementaría 25 puntos porcentuales al año. El aumento de la parte correspondiente a esos países en el comercio mundial será más acusado cuanto más rápido sean capaces de ponerse al día tecnológicamente. Otra conclusión de las simulaciones es que las exportaciones de servicios representarán una parte mayor del comercio mundial (más de una cuarta parte del comercio total en 2030) y que los cambios tecnológicos tienden a aumentar la proporción de las importaciones de servicios en la producción manufacturera bruta. Por último esos avances tecnológicos no parecen presagiar una relocalización o localización de la producción lo que indica que los futuros cambios tecnológicos pueden ir de la mano de una globalización continua.