Trade Preferences and the World Trade Organization Negotiations on Market Access - Battling for Compensation of Erosion of GSP, ACP and Other Trade Preferences or Assessing and Improving Their Utilization and Value by Addressing Rules of Origin and Gradu

摘要

Erosion of trade preferences is a "refrain" of multilateral tariff negotiations on market access. Whenever multilateral negotiations have been launched and aimed at reducing most-favoured-nation (MFN) tariffs, countries that are beneficiaries of trade preferences have expressed their concerns over the possible impact that the reduction of MFN rates would have over the preferential margin granted under preferential tariff systems. The debate over the value of trade preferences, especially in the case of market access negotiations on agricultural goods, has become a highly divisive issue among developing countries. At present, some of the proposals made by developing countries in the negotiating group on market access for non-agricultural products and the proposals in the Committee on Agriculture on Market Access, are reflecting this concern. Almost in parallel to the negotiations, a number of studies have been undertaken on the value of trade preferences. The debate over trade preferences has now stretched to opposing poles in the economic literature on the trade effects and economic implication of trade preferences: from perversity to real and undervalued trade instrument.