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The development process can advance more rapidly than ever before in the new global economy. While opening their economies to trade and investment is a necessary condition for developing countries to achieve sustained high growth and reduce poverty, it is by no means a sufficient condition. Initiating a sustainable dynamic growth requires sound, market-oriented economic policies; appropriate social policy frameworks, including strong investment in human capital and adequate social safety-nets; and good governance. But, as shown by the Asian financial crisis, weaknesses in any of these basic foundations make even successful developing economies vulnerable to crisis.
OECD countries have a pivotal role to play in facilitating developing countries' efforts to fully exploit the benefits of open trade and investment. The key objective of this report is to identify how OECD countries can promote policy coherence by improving the framework for international investment and capital flows; addressing environmental concerns; facilitating participation of developing countries in the global information society; and enhancing the coherence of development co-operation policies. To be successful, policy coherence implies the broader agenda of consciously taking account of the needs and interests of developing countries in order for them to be effective rather than vulnerable and marginal players in the global economy.
Recent years have witnessed growing concern over the controversial issue of trade and labour standards. In a context of intensified international competition, alleged cases of child labour exploitation or of denial of rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining in some developing countries have been perceived by some in developed countries not only as a violation of human rights but also as unfair trade practices. On the other hand, developing countries generally respond that these concerns are unfounded and reflect disguised protectionist preoccupations. What are the relevant core labour standards in this discussion? Do countries with low levels of core labour standards gain an unfair trade advantage over countries with high standards? What are the advantages and disadvantages of possible mechanisms to promote core labour standards? This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of these questions and reviews evidence for a large number of countries throughout the world.
These proceedings of the OECD Global Forum on Agriculture brought together experts from both developing and developed countries and from both the agriculture and development communities. The papers presented explore why policy coherence is important, how it affects global agricultural trade, and whether it can help reduce poverty and hunger.
This collection of studies is intended as a practical tool to help negotiators navigate the numerous, complex issues that have arisen in international discussions over liberalising trade in environmental goods and services. In addition to explaining the background to the two earlier lists of environmental goods (stemming from separate efforts by the OECD and by the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum), the different chapters:
- Explore various practical issues related to the classification of environmental goods, including "dual use" goods.
- Provide concrete examples of synergies between trade in environmental services and environmental goods.
- Synthesise the findings of various country studies on environmental goods and services undertaken by the OECD and other inter-governmental organisations.
The services sector plays a vital infrastructure role in national economies, employs more people than other sectors, and is the most dynamic sector of world trade. New negotiations under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, which began in January 2000, offer an important opportunity to reap the benefits of greater openness in services markets worldwide. The papers in this volume, produced as part of the OECD Trade Directorate's services project, explore fundamental issues for the services negotiations: what are the barriers to trade in services? How can those barriers be addressed in negotiations to ensure meaningful results? How can services liberalisation be bolstered and underpinned by improved regulatory transparency? Ranging from the incidence and impact of economic needs tests, through quantitative and qualitative formulas for reducing the barriers to trade in services, to possible disciplines affording interested parties the opportunity to comment before regulations are enacted, this volume identifies and analyses innovative solutions to the challenges facing services negotiators.
Counterfeit and pirated products come from many economies, with China appearing as the single largest producing market. These illegal products are frequently found in a range of industries, from luxury items (e.g. fashion apparel or deluxe watches), via intermediary products (such as machines, spare parts or chemicals) to consumer goods that have an impact on personal health and safety (such as pharmaceuticals, food and drink, medical equipment, or toys). This report assess the quantitative value, scope and trends of this illegal trade.
The modern structure of the UK economy is largely based on knowledge, ideas and innovation and its well integrated global value chains. These factors help boost the country’s economic growth, but at the same time they make it highly susceptible to the risk of trade in counterfeit goods. This risk negatively affects UK rights holders, the UK government, and the reputation of UK firms. This report measures the direct, economic effects of counterfeiting on consumers, retail and manufacturing industry and governments in the United Kingdom. It does so from two perspectives: the impact on these three groups of imports of fake products into the UK, and the impact of the global trade in fake products on UK intellectual property rights holders.
This report, one in a series of studies by the OECD and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), enhances understanding of the issues and challenges facing governments, businesses and society posed by the trade in fake pharmaceutical products. Illicit markets for fake pharmaceuticals are attractive for counterfeiters, given the high profit margins, low risks of detection and prosecution, weak penalties, and the ease with which consumers can be deceived into believing that the counterfeit products are genuine. Counterfeit medicines not only cause economic damage for the sector, but are also a significant threat to public health, since fake medicines are often not properly formulated and may contain dangerous ingredients. Fake pharmaceuticals include antibiotics, lifestyle treatments, pain killers, anti-malarial drugs, diabetes treatments and central nervous system medicines.
Recent years have witnessed a constant rise in the spread of ICT (information and communication technologies) infrastructure and a growing demand for ICT goods. The production of these goods is knowledge intensive and the industry relies extensively on intellectual property (IP) rights. This strong and growing demand for ICT goods, and their IP dependence, makes them an attractive target for counterfeiters. This study looks at the trade in counterfeit ICT goods, including the size of the trade, the main sources of fake goods, and the countries whose companies are most affected.
The Italian economy is innovative and rich in intellectual property (IP), with nearly every industry either producing or using IP. Italian IP-intensive industries are very well integrated in the global economy, through active participation in global value chains. At the same time, the threats of counterfeiting and piracy are growing – and Italy is vulnerable. This report measures the direct, economic effects of counterfeiting on Italian consumers, the Italian retail and manufacturing industry, and the Italian governments. It examines both the impact that the imports of fake products to Italy has on these three groups and the impact on the Italian intellectual property rights holders of the global trade in fake products that infringe their IP rights.
This study examines the potential for the misuse of Free Trade Zones (FTZs) for trade in counterfeit and pirated goods. It presents the evolution of the FTZs and the international legal framework in which they operate, the reasons for establishing such zones and the benefits they offer businesses, and, finally, the role these zones play in fuelling trade in counterfeit and pirated goods. It also analyses the links between the FTZs and trade in counterfeit products, and provides data on these links.
Trade promotes economic growth, alleviates poverty and helps countries reach their development goals. However, developing countries – in particular the least developed – face difficulties in making trade happen and turning trade into economic growth. The Aid for Trade Initiative – launched at the 2005 World Trade Organisation conference in Hong Kong – aims at helping these countries to take advantage of trade opportunities and to reap the benefits of their integration into the world economy. The Initiative has been a success: it has not only raised awareness among both donors and developing countries about the role of trade in development, but also helped secure increased resources.
Trade for Growth and Poverty Reduction: How Aid for Trade Can Help explains how Aid for Trade can foster economic growth and reduce poverty, and why it is an important instrument for a development strategy that actively supports poverty alleviation. Unlocking this potential requires carefully designed and sequenced trade reforms. While developing countries have many trade-related needs, but financial resources and political capital for reforms are limited, it is an important priority to tackle the most binding constraints to trade expansion. This report describes the diagnostic tools available, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and suggests a dynamic framework to guide the sequencing of reform and donor support.
Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation identifies the requirements for successful reallocation of labour and capital to more efficient uses in response to the emergence of new sources of competition, technological change and shifting consumer preferences. At the same time, it focuses on limiting adjustment costs for individuals, communities and society as a whole. Based on specific sectoral case studies, this volume includes analysis of the adjustment challenge and policy framework in both developed and developing countries, together with practical recommendations for good practice.
International competition, accelerating technological change and shifting societal concerns are important drivers of structural change, both within and across firms, industries and regions. As well as bringing undoubted opportunities, structural adjustment raises acute challenges. This must be acknowledged in making the case for open markets. This brochure aims to identify, for both developed and developing countries, the requirements for successful trade-related structural adjustment via the reallocation of labour and capital to more efficient uses, while limiting adjustment costs for individuals, communities and society as a whole. It draws on a longer study incorporating detailed sectoral case studies...
As trade barriers at the border have fallen through successive trade negotiations, domestic regulation has emerged as a source of residual but potentially significant trade barriers. Recognising the importance of participating in intensified global competition, countries increasingly see regulatory reform as an inescapable policy to ensure that the expected benefits of globalisation are realised and that differences in national regulatory systems do not become barriers to international trade and investment. In this light, OECD has undertaken a broad-ranging project on regulatory reform, for which market openness is seen as a key objective.
The papers collected in this volume were presented at a workshop at OECD that aimed to share national experiences of regulatory reform and trade and to foster consensus-building on best practices. Such practices include enhanced transparency, non-discriminatory due process, independence of regulators and active implementation of competition policy. Other issues raised at the workshop included the challenges for developing countries in pursuing regulatory reform and enhancing market openness, and insights for multilateral trading rule-making emerging from country experiences.
The discussions reveal the pervasiveness of the issues raised at the workshop. In examining the recent development of regulatory issues in trade policy making, this volume brings new light to experiences in some parts of Asia and the Western hemisphere as well as to the growing links among trade, regulation and governance.
This Trade and Gender Review of New Zealand draws on both quantitative and qualitative insights to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of trade, and trade policies, on New Zealand women as workers, consumers, and business owners and leaders. This Review sets out policy recommendations to help tackle the barriers that women face in engaging in trade and ensure that they share in the benefits from trade. Key recommendations include ensuring market access for goods and services that women produce and consume; incorporating gender provisions in trade agreements; trade facilitation reforms that particularly benefit women entrepreneurs; export promotion of women-led businesses; and ensuring diversity in trade policymaking.
The dramatic collapse in world trade in 2009 is, this report shows, mainly due to: the drop in demand for highly traded products; the drying up of trade finance; and the vertically integrated nature of global supply chains. Contrary to expectations, protectionist measures were relatively muted and did not play a significant part. In fact, because of their sheer size, stimulus measures may have had more impact on trade than direct trade policy measures Nevertheless, dollar for dollar, direct trade restricting measures have the most strongly negative impacts on growth and employment: a one dollar increase in tariff revenues results in a USD 2.16 drop in world exports and a USD 0.73 drop in world income.
The analyses presented here suggest that exit strategies from measures to deal with the crisis will be most effective in boosting growth and jobs if they first roll back measures that discriminate between domestic and foreign firms and those that target specific sectors. General demand stimulus measures and active labour market policies are preferable under current conditions.
This book focuses on the role of exchange rate regimes, market imperfections and trade policy to support the strengthening and diversification of the tradable sector in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Moreover, it analyses the agro-food sector, one of the pillars of the tradable sector in the region, and the role of foreign direct investment and competition policy. Overall it provides an integrated and original policy perspective on the factors underlying international competitiveness.
The links between trade policy and competition policy have become more important in recent years. With tariff reductions, trade negotiators are looking increasingly at non-border policies that distort trade and at non-governmental barriers to trade. And, as official barriers to trade and investment fall, firms may have a greater incentive to engage in anti-competitive conduct to protect markets. Hence the need for coherent trade and competition policies. Trade and competition policies each seek to improve the allocation of resources; they complement and reinforce each other. These papers from the OECD Joint Group on Trade and competition examine aspects of those complementarities and relationships and in so doing draw on the OECD’s capacity to analyse questions in a multidisciplinary way. This book -- which includes a whole chapter on the telecommunications sector -- throws new light on all these issues in the lead up to the WTO's new round of negotiations. But whatever the outcome of Seattle, the questions raised in this volume will remain relevant.