Trade facilitation and customs valuation

In today’s open and interconnected global economy, efforts to streamline, speed up, and coordinate trade processes, as much as efforts to further liberalize trade policies, will contribute to the expansion of world trade and help countries to connect to an increasingly globalized production system. While trade agreements in the past were about “negative” integration – countries lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers – the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreemen Read More

Although traditional trade barriers such as tariffs have come down, and innovations in transportation and communications technology have shrunk the distance between nations, trade costs remain high, particularly in developing countries. High trade costs isolate developing countries from world markets, limiting their trade opportunities and impeding growth. High trade costs also appear to disproportionately affect small and medium-sized enterpris Read More

This section first provides a conceptual framework for understanding the economic effects of trade facilitation – how improving trade procedures reduces trade costs, and how that in turn affects the pattern and volume of trade, the allocation of resources, and economic welfare. Given that trade facilitation can, in principle, be implemented unilaterally, this section examines the reasons why countries would want to include trade facilitation in a multilateral Read More

Las sucesivas rondas de negociaciones comerciales multilaterales, y su culminación en la Ronda Uruguay en 1994, lograron reducir radicalmente los aranceles y otros obstáculos al comercio internacional, pero los costos del comercio siguieron siendo elevados, en parte debido a las cargas administrativas y la poca eficiencia de los procedimientos aduaneros. En un mundo cada vez más caracterizado por su sector manufacturero globalizado, sus sist Read More

Governments have collected customs duties since the beginnings of international trade. It is recorded that Athens applied 20 percent import duties on corn and other goods, while the Romans, from well before the time of Julius Caesar, depended upon customs revenues to support the expansion and maintenance of their empire. And, where a tax must be collected, there will be disputes over rates and methods – the Roman customs collector was accused of Read More

Cette section présente d’abord un cadre conceptuel permettant de comprendre les effets économiques de la facilitation des échanges, c’est-à-dire comment l’amélioration des procédures commerciales réduit les coûts du commerce et comment cela influe sur la structure et le volume des échanges, l’allocation des ressources et le bien-être économique. Étant donné que la facilitation des échanges peut en principe être mise en oeuvre unilatéralement, la Read More

Cette section tente de quantifier les différents avantages pouvant résulter des réformes axées sur la facilitation des échanges, et en particulier de la mise en oeuvre de l’Accord sur la facilitation des échanges, pour l’économie mondiale. Tout d’abord, on estime dans quelle mesure la mise en oeuvre de l’AFE pourrait réduire les coûts du commerce et on détermine quel groupe de pays et quelles régions pourraient bénéficier de la plus forte réduction. O Read More

El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2015 ha sido elaborado bajo la responsabilidad general de Xiaozhun Yi, Director General Adjunto de la OMC, y Robert Koopman, Director de la División de Estudios Económicos y Estadística. El informe de este año ha sido coordinado por Coleman Nee y Robert Teh. Los autores del informe son Marc Auboin, Marc Bacchetta, Cosimo Beverelli, John Hancock, Christian Henn, Alexander Keck, José Antonio Monteiro, Coleman N Read More