Report to the TPRB from the Director-General on Trade-Related Developments

WTO members introduced more trade-restrictive measures from mid-October 2017 to mid-May 2018 compared to the previous review period (mid-October 2016 to mid-October 2017), according to the Director-General’s mid-year report on trade-related developments presented to members on 25 July at a meeting of the Trade Policy Review Body. While WTO members continued to implement more trade-facilitating than trade-restrictive measures, the value of trade covered by the restrictive measures rose and the value covered by facilitating measures fell. The report draws attention to this shift, and to the fact that it is taking place at a time of heightened trade tensions and associated rhetoric, which should be of concern to the international community.

Report urges WTO members to resist protectionism and “get trade moving again”: WTO members need to avoid putting up barriers and “get trade moving again” in order to address slow global economic growth, according to the Director-General’s mid-year report on trade-related developments issued on 25 July. The Trade Monitoring Report concludes that the “best safeguard we have against protectionism is a strong multilateral trading system”.

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”.

Lamy reports no slowdown in new trade restrictions: Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his report on trade-related developments issued on 29 June 2012, said that “there has been no slowdown in the imposition of new trade restrictions over the past seven months”. He noted that “the more recent wave of trade restrictions seems no longer to be aimed at combatting the temporary effects of the global crisis, but rather at trying to stimulate recovery through national industrial planning, which is a an altogether longer-term affair”.

WTO-OECD-UNCTAD: Despite crisis, G20 governments largely resist protectionist pressures: The WTO, OECD and UNCTAD, in a joint report on G20 trade and investment measures released on 14 June 2010, noted the imposition of fewer trade restrictions but warned “they are accumulating”. In a separate report to WTO members on trade-related developments, Director-General Pascal Lamy confirmed this trend but urged governments to remain “vigilant” and to give priority to “exiting current restricting measures”. The OECD and UNCTAD also released a separate report on G20 investment measures.