Brussels, 10/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - In its latest annual report on developments in world trade, which was published on Thursday 9 December, the World Trade Organization (WTO) notes some restraint in the adoption of new trade restrictions, but criticises slow progress in removing the barriers to trade that have been in place since the crisis in 2008.
Presenting this annual report to the trade policy review body, WTO Deputy Director-General Yonov Frederick Agah underlined “the risk posed by the continued accumulation of trade restrictions in a climate of global economic uncertainty”.
Nearly 75% of the restrictions to trade adopted by the WTO member countries since October 2008 are still in place. Of the 2,557 restrictions (including trade remedies) recorded by the monitoring exercise since October 2008, only 642 have been removed, the report states.
“The addition of new trade-restrictive measures, combined with a slow removal rate, remains a persistent concern”, Agah said on Thursday.
The annual report nevertheless confirms that the members of the WTO continue to show some restraint in the adoption of new trade restriction measures, with the number of new measures introduced remaining relatively stable since 2012. Since the last annual report, 178 new restrictive measures have been implemented - in other words, an average of just under 15 new measures per month.
Another encouraging sign is that the WTO member countries adopted a record number of trade facilitation measures between October 2014 and October 2015. Over this period, 222 new measures facilitating trade were adopted - in other words, an average of 19 measures per month (the second biggest number since the 2008 monitoring exercise). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)