Trade monitoring

The World Trade Report is a new annual WTO publication focused on trade trends and policy issues. The 2003 edition examines developments in South-South trade trends in commodity markets and the growth of Regional Trade Agreements.

DDG Agah notes no acceleration of new restrictions urges more trade transparency: Deputy Director-General Yonov Frederick Agah in presenting the Director-General’s report on trade-related developments (mid-November 2013 to mid-May 2014) to the Trade Policy Review Body on 11 July 2014 said that “the pace at which new trade restrictions have been introduced has not accelerated during the period under review”. He urged members to provide more trade information for the monitoring reports: “I am convinced and the Director-General’s recent meetings with business groups have confirmed this that members must accept their collective responsibility for promoting the transparency and predictability which importers and exporters demand”.

“Trade Policy Reviews” analyse the trade policies and practices of each member of the WTO. The reviews consist of three parts: an independent report by the WTO Secretariat a report by the government and the concluding remarks by the Chair of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Body. The opening section - “key trade facts” - provides a visual overview of the WTO member's major exports/imports main export destinations origins for its imports and other key data. This edition looks into the trade practices of Bahrain.

The WTO’s latest Trade Monitoring Report on G20 trade measures shows a slowdown in the number and coverage of trade-restrictive and trade-facilitating measures on goods implemented by G20 countries between mid-May and mid-October 2020 primarily as a result of the sharp decline in overall global trade since the COVID-19 outbreak. The report also documents numerous trade-facilitating and support measures introduced by G20 economies in response to the economic downturn in order to prepare the ground for a strong economic recovery.

Joint study: restrictive measures continue apace accrued restraints hit 3% of imports: The seventh WTO-OECD-UNCTAD report for the G-20 on trade and investment restrictions reveals that government-imposed trade and investment restrictions have not slowed and that the pace of removing such obstacles has decelerated. The accumulation of such restraints means that nearly 3% of global imports are affected while the restrictions now impact nearly 4% of G-20 trade.

La publicación Perfiles comerciales 2019 presenta una serie de indicadores clave sobre el comercio de mercancías y de servicios de 197 economías. En el caso del comercio de mercancías se indican las principales exportaciones e importaciones de productos agropecuarios y productos no agrícolas así como los principales orígenes y destinos de esos productos. En el caso del comercio de servicios se hace un desglose detallado por servicios de transporte viajes y otros servicios comerciales. La publicación contiene asimismo estadísticas sobre propiedad intelectual. Se ofrece información respecto de todos los Miembros y observadores de la OMC y de otras economías. Los datos de cada economía se presentan en un práctico formato de dos páginas lo que proporciona un panorama sucinto del comercio mundial. La publicación es un instrumento de referencia imprescindible para todo aquel que necesite consultar estadísticas comerciales básicas.

One of the main objectives of this Report is to analyze whether WTO provisions provide a balance between supplying governments with necessary flexibility to face difficult economic situations and adequately defining them in a way that limits their use for protectionist purposes. In analysing this question the Report focuses primarily on contingency measures available to WTO members when importing and exporting goods. These measures include the use of safeguards such as tariffs and quotas in specified circumstances anti-dumping duties on goods that are deemed to be “dumped” and countervailing duties imposed to offset subsidies. The Report also discusses alternative policy options including the renegotiation of tariff commitments the use of export taxes and increases in tariffs up to their legal maximum ceiling or binding. The analysis includes consideration of legal economic and political economy factors that influence the use of these measures and their associated benefits and costs.

“Trade Policy Reviews” analyse the trade policies and practices of each member of the WTO. The reviews consist of three parts: an independent report by the WTO Secretariat a report by the government and the concluding remarks by the Chair of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Body. The opening section - “key trade facts” - provides a visual overview of the WTO member's major exports/imports main export destinations origins for its imports and other key data. This edition looks into the trade practices of Honduras.

“Trade Policy Reviews” analyse the trade policies and practices of each member of the WTO. The reviews consist of three parts: an independent report by the WTO Secretariat a report by the government and the concluding remarks by the Chair of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Body. The opening section - “key trade facts” - provides a visual overview of the WTO member’s major exports/imports main export destinations origins for its imports and other key data. This edition looks into the trade practices of Hong Kong China.

El Acuerdo sobre Facilitación del Comercio (AFC) de la OMC adoptado por los Miembros de la OMC en la Conferencia Ministerial de Bali en diciembre de 2013 es el primer acuerdo comercial multilateral concertado desde el establecimiento de la OMC en 1995. El Informe sobre el Comercio Mundial 2015 es el primer estudio detallado de los efectos potenciales del AFC que se basa en un análisis completo del texto del acuerdo definitivo.