Trade Policy Note Final-rev08 - Development

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Ensure sustainability Export polices should also ensure that exports are sustainable in the sense that current gains do not prevent subsequent generations from improving their own welfare. The concept of sustainability encompasses environmental concerns, as well as human capabilities such as health and education. Export industries may damage the environment, exhausting resources and otherwise serving to undermine the livelihoods of people employed in other sectors. Employment opportunities may entail unhealthy and dangerous working conditions, resulting in workers not being able to sustain more than a few years employment in the export industries. Hence, export orientation should be part of a comprehensive development strategy that incorporates measures to ensure that these human development objectives are attained. Elements of a Comprehensive pro -Poor Export Strategy These should comprise the following: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) improving the infrastructure supporting export activities of small and poor producers, including access to credit and to land; providing them with access to training and technology to improve skills; assisting them in raising the quality of the goods and services they produce, to meet SPS, TBT and buyer preferences; ensuring adequate working conditions, health and safety standards; Obtaining freer and more secure access to markets for their products, Liberalization of trade in services should be targeted to sectors where investment supports the competitiveness of the export sectors, and should be subject to condition that enhance this positive contribution; Strengthening community participation in export benefits through such techniques as the protection and application of traditional knowledge and the encouragement and protection of geographical indications; Strengthening positive linkages with other sectors of the economy, and dealing with negative externalities, e.g. working conditions, environmental degradation; Facilitating the temporary movement of persons abroad to gain skills and foreign exchange. 30
Box 14: Export Policies and WTO and other Tra de Agreements The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (Article 27.2(a)) exempts LDCs from the prohibition on export subsidies. The same exemption is also provided to a list of countries (in Annex VII) as long as their per capita GDP remains below $1000. <strong>Note</strong> that some acceding countries have forsaken this right in their terms of accession to the WTO. The Agreement on Agriculture permits countries to subsidize exports up to the level of their negotiated commitments. Very few developing countries have negotiated such commitments, and thus cannot subsidize. The TRIMs Agreement prohibits trade balancing requirements, i.e. that investing firms must export to the extent they import. However, it does permit export performance and transfer of technology requirements. The GATS Agreement permits performance requirements for developing countries in order to help strengthen services in developing countries and it has no effective disciplines on export subsidies. However, many countries have given up the right to these and other performance requirements in their terms of accession or in bilateral agreements (BITs and FTAs). Access to Export Markets Export-led development strategies obviously require the most free and secure access to world markets possible. For several decades developing countries have enjoyed preferential access to developed countries’ markets under the Generalized System of Preferences negotiated in UNCTAD. These had the advantage of being nonreciprocal, but the serious disadvantages of not being bound and thus insecure, and of containing many exceptions, precisely in sectors, (e.g. textiles and clothing and agriculture) where developing countries possess a comparative advantage. Some poorer developing countries, notably those in the ACP group, benefited from contractual preferences in the EU. Most developed countries (excluding the USA) have complied with their commitment to extend duty free treatment to LDCs. Other developing countries are granted autonomous preferences to assist them in dealing with specific problems, such as dependence on exports of illicit drugs. Many developing countries are seeking to negotiate FTAs with major developed countries as a means of ensuring conditions of access equal to those of their competitors. Negotiations have already begun to convert ACP preferences into reciprocal FTAs (“Economic Partnership Agreements”). However, barriers and distortions to world trade, particularly subsidized agricultural production and exports in the industrialized countries, ha ve heavily penalized many developing countries. Contingent measures such as anti-dumping duties have served to “nip in the bud” export expansion in developing countries, while stricter sanitary and technical regulations have also had a disproportionate impact on poor people, excluding them from export income. Stringent rules of origin have resulted in many exports not benefiting from available tariff preferences. Poorer people are much more adversely affected by insecure access to markets, as sudden disruptions to their exports can provoke immediate unemployment in export industries and bankrupt small independent producers. 31
Page 1 and 2: NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES POL
Page 3 and 4: Preface The outcome document of the
Page 5 and 6: A “New Generation” of Bilateral
Page 7 and 8: TNCs TRIMs TRIPS TRQ UNCTAD UNESCO
Page 9 and 10: The case and options for widening t
Page 11 and 12: outcomes are less clear. Moreover,
Page 13 and 14: countries struggle to ensure that t
Page 15 and 16: Goal B : to empower people to becom
Page 17 and 18: Tigers), has not followed the Brett
Page 19 and 20: III. TARIFFS AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY
Page 21 and 22: across the board tariff bindings. F
Page 23 and 24: Such tariff policy should ensure th
Page 25 and 26: Export duties can also be an elemen
Page 27 and 28: IV. EXPORTS AND POVERTY Can develop
Page 29: Increase Productivity Exports shoul
Page 33 and 34: percent of domestic consumption) wa
Page 35 and 36: developing countries with a few not
Page 37 and 38: Different products emerge at the to
Page 39 and 40: safeguard measures on agricultural
Page 41 and 42: suppliers in the domestic market fo
Page 43 and 44: Investment Policy is Central to Tra
Page 45 and 46: water and sanitation. Sustainabilit
Page 47 and 48: traditionally done in trade in good
Page 49 and 50: Mode 1 service exports, often terme
Page 51 and 52: It is now incumbent on developing c
Page 53 and 54: commercial value to their tradition
Page 55 and 56: The Proliferation of FTAs Over rece
Page 57 and 58: services liberalization in these ag
Page 59 and 60: copyright protection may be extende
Page 61 and 62: (q) SPS and TBT. Within the framewo
Page 63 and 64: Market Access Even after the abolit
Page 65 and 66: were established almost exclusively
Page 67 and 68: Annex 3B: Fisheries, Putting the pr
Page 69 and 70: also enshrined in the Code of Condu
Page 71 and 72: poorest people. 140 Governments in
Page 73 and 74: Annex 5B: Energy services Attainmen
Page 75 and 76: Box 25: Strategies for Strengthenin
Page 77 and 78: On the contrary, a sharp decline ha
Page 79 and 80: small farmers find themselves left
Page 81 and 82:
A number of developing countries ar
Page 83 and 84:
Commission on Intellectual Property
Page 85 and 86:
Mathew, Sebastian (2003). Trade in
Page 87 and 88:
UNDP (2005). Human Development Repo
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Trade Policy Note Final-rev08 - Development

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