The Bali Ministerial Conference in December established a mechanism to review and analyse the implementation of special and differential treatment provisions. Least-developed countries LDCs are the poorest members of the world community. Special provisions are continuously being considered to assist them in their development efforts. Most recently, the WTO Ministerial Conferences held in Bali in and in Nairobi in adopted several decisions in favour of LDCs to assist their better integration into the multilateral trading system.
Decisions on duty-free and quota-free market access, preferential rules of origin and the LDC services waiver constituted important steps forward in further improving preferential market access for goods and services originating from LDCs.
In addition, decisions on cotton provided for enhanced transparency and monitoring of trade-related as well as development assistance aspects of cotton. Another factor which distinguishes developing Asia and China on one hand, and all other developing countries combined on the other, is their respective participation in the globalization process. Data on the evolution of trade-to-GDP ratios, and on inflows of foreign direct investment FDI , are useful, albeit rough, indicators of the extent of integration into the global economy.
As regards the ratio of trade in goods and services to GDP, the contrast between developing Asia including China and other developing countries is evident in Chart 4.
For the Asian developing countries a dramatic doubling in their trade-to-GDP ratio can be observed for the to period; if China is excluded from developing Asia, the trade-to-GDP ratio is significantly higher; however, the trend increase in the ratio is very similar.
The "other developing countries" as a group, in contrast, have trade-to-GDP ratios in which are - despite the recovery since - not much different from the levels. See footnote 5. Along with a more favourable trade performance over the past decade, the developing countries in Asia also recorded a much stronger investment performance. Most South East Asian countries reported ratios of domestic fixed investment to GDP of around 30 per cent during the period, while those of Latin America and Africa fluctuated around 20 per cent.
At the same time, the former countries were more open and attractive to foreign direct investment. In order to examine trade performances on a more disaggregated level, two partially overlapping comparisons are developed briefly below a third comparison is given in Box 1 on page The first involves comparing a group of countries that recorded above average export growth during , with a group of countries that recorded negative export growth over that same period see Annex for the composition of the two groups.
Among the 25 countries that recorded above average growth of merchandise exports during , 15 reported "steady" above average growth that is, for both the sub-periods and A large majority of these steady strong performers - 12 out of 15 countries - export mainly manufactures the share of manufactures in their respective merchandise exports ranged from 70 to 97 per cent in Half of the remaining ten strong but not "steady" exporters also export principally manufactured goods.
As regards the 35 countries whose exports in were below the level, only four export principally manufactures. A review of those four traders reveals that very particular factors explain their presence among the poor performers. See footnote 6. Although the comparison between the poor and strong performers indicates a correlation between the share of manufactures in total merchandise exports and the growth of total merchandise exports, there are at least two important examples where strong export growth coincided with a moderate share of manufactures in total merchandise trade.
In the case of Viet Nam, the high and steady export growth from a very low level of exports in is linked not only to the rapid rise in exports of manufactures, but also to the development of oil fields which led to significant exports of crude oil, and to strong exports of food mainly rice.
The rise in exports of crude oil and manufactured goods can be partly attributed to a sharp rise in FDI inflows, especially in the 's. Chile is another country with a strong export performance and a very low share of manufactures traditionally defined in total exports 17 per cent. The success of Chile is linked to the successful diversification into "new" sometimes highly processed agricultural products and an above average performance for its largest single export product, namely copper.
Even though all copper exporters benefited from the fact that copper prices increased faster than the prices of other commodities, Chile increased its share in global copper output from 16 per cent in to 26 per cent in while at the same time, the share of copper in Chile's total merchandise exports declined from 47 to 38 per cent. Other dynamic exports included fish, shell fish, fruits, wine and wood pulp. Important elements in the export expansion of both copper and agricultural products were the wide ranging liberalization and privatization programs and the associated inflow of FDI, which gives Chile one of the largest stocks of FDI per capita in Latin America.
The source of this concern is readily apparent from the figures in Table 4, as is the motivation behind the search for lessons in the experience of East Asian economies. See footnote 7 It should be added that Bangladesh - by far the largest country among the LLDCs - is a partial exception.
With a high share of manufactures in its total merchandise exports 83 per cent in , it figured among those traders which expanded their exports faster than world trade through The wide range of experience among developing countries is also examined in a recent World Bank report, using some of the same variables mentioned above such as the share of manufactures in exports. See footnote 8 Box 1 reproduces the principal conclusions of that analysis, the latter two of which anticipate points made later in this paper.
Hong Kong re-exports are excluded. World Bank, April Developing countries as a group have participated extensively in the acceleration of global integration, although some have done much better than others. This chapter reviews developing countries' widely varying experience with integration over the past ten years and explores the causes and implications of the large disparities.
Many developing countries became less integrated with the world economy over the past decade, and a large divide separates the least from the most integrated. It is striking, for example, that the ratio of trade to GDP fell in forty-four of ninety-three developing countries over the past ten years, while the ratio of FDI to GDP fell in more than a third. Many low-income countries are among the least integrated, however, and some became even more marginalized during this period, experiencing both falling incomes and reduced integration.
But other low-income countries - including some of the largest - were among the fastest integrators. Policy reforms designed to increase an economy's growth and stability are likely to influence a country's speed of integration, both directly and through their effect on growth. Reforms that promote stable macro-economic conditions, realistic exchange rates, and open trade and investment regimes are also important for growth and integration.
But if current policies and trends persist, many developing countries can expect to fall further behind OECD countries in per capita GDP. The speed of integration index is the simple average of changes in the four indicators over the period expressed as standardized scores. On the basis of this index, developing countries are grouped in four categories ranging from "fast integrators" those with the highest index values to "slow integrators" those with the lowest; table This classification is not intended to derive a precise categorization of individual countries but rather to develop evidence about the factors that might account for large differences in the speed of integration among groups of countries, and the consequences of this for performance.
Commercial Services. It appears that the share of developing countries in world exports and imports of commercial services increased between and however, the share remains somewhat below the share of developing countries in world merchandise trade.
See footnote 9 This is entirely due to the performance of the Asian developing countries, as other regions reported a stagnating or declining share in world services trade. As regards the three major categories of commercial services - transport, travel and other business services - the available data suggest that the developing countries as a group have increased their market shares in all three categories since For ease of exposition, this part is divided into "external factors" and "domestic factors".
The discussion is limited to certain key factors in each category any attempt at a complete listing would be well beyond the scope of this overview paper. A third section briefly highlights the fact that factors in one category often interact in important ways, both with one another and with factors in the other category. Although the average level of tariff protection on non-agricultural imports into the industrial countries is relatively low - once the Uruguay Round reductions are fully implemented they will average 3.
See footnote 10 Agriculture has been highly protected and exports frequently subsidized, and special provisions permitting discriminatory quotas on textiles and clothing, in place since the beginning of the s, were expanded with the introduction of the Multifibre Arrangement MFA in In the area of manufactures more generally, there was a proliferation of so-called "grey area" measures VERs, OMAs and so forth from the late s until the beginning of the Uruguay Round, with an above-average incidence on labour-intensive exports from developing countries.
See footnote 11 More recently, anti-dumping actions and countervailing duties have increasingly been used to restrict imports. See footnote There are post-Uruguay Round tariff peaks for some products of critical interest to developing countries, including textiles, clothing, and fish and fish products.
As a result, the average reduction in tariffs for industrial country imports from developing countries other than the LLDCs 37 per cent is lower than the average reduction in applied tariffs for imports from all countries 40 per cent , while the average reduction on imports from LLDCs was even smaller 25 per cent.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the below-average reductions in tariffs on textiles and clothing do not take into account the increase in market access that will result from the phase-out of MFA-related restrictions. At the same time, an important feature of the tariff commitments made by the developed countries in the Uruguay Round is a substantial increase in bound duty-free treatment.
Once the agreed tariff reductions have been fully implemented, the proportion of merchandise imports entering duty-free will increase from just over 10 to almost 40 per cent for the United States, from almost 24 to almost 38 per cent for the European Union, and from 35 to 71 per cent for Japan.
While the MFA was a major distortion of world trade which affected many developing countries' participation in world trade in textiles and clothing, individual countries have been affected in very different ways by the MFA, depending on their comparative advantage in these products. On the one hand, there are the exporters of textiles and clothing which currently have a strong comparative advantage and whose market access has been tightly restricted, and which therefore will benefit from the Uruguay Round agreement to abolish MFA-related restrictions.
See footnote 13 On the other hand, two groups of exporters may suffer transitional adjustment costs as a result of its abolition. The tariff reductions agreed to in the Tokyo Round an average cut of one-third in industrial country tariffs on manufactures reduced preference margins, which in turn are being further reduced as the tariff reductions agreed to in the Uruguay Round a further 40 per cent reduction are implemented.
See footnote 14 The impact of preference erosion, of course, depends in part on the rate of utilization of the preferences. As studies by the UNCTAD and others have pointed out, the utilization of existing preferential arrangements - and thus their trade promoting effects - have been limited for various reasons.
Half of the European Union's imports from Africa are petroleum and other fuels that enter under MFN rates bound at zero, and three-quarters of the imports of industrial products enter duty free or under very low MFN tariffs.
See footnote 15 In the case of GSP, there are limits on product coverage and limits on the extent of duty free entry. Restrictive rules of origin and an implicit lack of permanence are characteristics of virtually all preference schemes. The WTO is the coordinating agency for the Aid for Trade programme and as such regularly brings donors, development agencies, recipient governments and the private sector together.
This dialogue helps to highlight what is being provided and what is needed while encouraging the development of more suitably designed projects. Both donor and recipient countries have responded to these efforts. Better communications. Efforts are also being made to help countries that do not have permanent representatives in Geneva. The way I see it, trade makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. And even worse, the WTO actually allows rich countries to pay huge subsidies to their farmers.
If it were allowed to do its job properly, trade would help the poor to be fed. Recent UN studies confirm that tariff peaks and tariff escalation still hamper developing country exports and their attempts to export new products such as beef, cigarettes, clothing, footwear, and wood articles. To gain new market access in developing countries, the developed countries—acting in the interests of transnational corporations TNCs —have rapidly imposed new agreements in telecommunications, information technology, and financial services.
The Millennium Round talks scheduled to commence in late will advance economic liberalization in both traditional and new sectors even further, contrary to the interests of developing countries. Washington has creatively interpreted WTO agreements to protect key industries. In textiles and clothing, the U. Similarly, the U. It has also introduced its own Rules of Origin rules used to identify where a textile or clothing product comes from , changing the conditions of competition and adding to the restrictions against the low-cost textile exports of other countries.
Using creative calculations and interpretations of the Agreement on Agriculture intended to reduce domestic support and open up markets , the U. Thus the agreement institutionalizes subsidies to U.
These policies promote food availability through trade and discourage countries from developing food self-sufficiency. Most developing countries are short of foreign exchange and cannot afford to buy food from the world market, despite low pricing and availability.
New rules regarding plant information will have both agricultural and medical implications. When fully implemented, developing countries will lose billions in rent transfers to rich countries, as TNCs will continue to control virtually all the patents of developing countries.
But biotechnology is not the answer to food shortages. Genetically modified seeds and plants GMOs raise costs for farmers and promote monocropping, which increases the incidence of diseases and pests, encourages the use of chemicals, and threatens the biodiversity and genetic purity of plant species.
Furthermore, although the U. In sum, TRIPS will be catastrophic for both health and sustainable agricultural systems in developing countries. Washington intends to introduce a broad spectrum of issues at the Millennium Round talks with the aim of enlarging the market for U.
High on the agenda will be the controversial Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which seeks to gain national treatment and rights for corporations operating in all countries. Small- and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries are unlikely to be able to withstand such competition, leading to the destruction of domestic economies in the LDCs. Washington also intends to conclude an initial agreement on transparency in government procurement by the Third Ministerial Conference.
0コメント