Project on Collection and Quantification of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) and national regulation Bangkok, Thailand
Anders Aeroe Chief, Market Analysis Section Division of Product and Market Development 29 January 2008
Background

In general, tariffs are declining as a result of multilateral and regional trade liberalisation, leaving Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) and other trade barriers as the major obstacles to trade. These non-tariff barriers are often designed to meet certain specific policy objectives of a country such as technical standards requirements. In the process, the trade and development performance of other countries are however adversely affected as a result of such barriers. The problem is compounded for developing countries, which have difficulties to access information on these barriers and to comply with the requirements. In practice, it has also been proven difficult to analyse non-tariff measures and other barriers to trade in a very effective manner due to a lack of a common definition, inadequate data and an agreed methodology for quantifying them. It is against this backdrop that the Secretary General of UNCTAD has mandated a Group of Eminent Persons on Non-Tariff Barriers (GNTB) to work on the issue of NTBs. A Multi-Agency Support Team comprising of the World Bank, FAO, IMF OECD, UNIDO, WTO, UNCTAD and the International Trade Centre (ITC) has been tasked to provide the necessary technical support to the Group.
Objectives

The project will provide an opportunity to concretely work on the issue of non-tariff measures and barriers to trade from a developing country’s perspective and to provide more transparency on this worldwide issue. The long-term objective of this pilot project is to test and validate (i) a new classification of these non-tariff measures and barriers to trade and (ii) a data collection methodology that could eventually be