A Survey of Non-Tariff Measures in the East Asia and Pacific Region

Abstract

This report seeks to give a multifaceted view of non-tariff issues facing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region both vis-a-vis their most important export markets as well as intra-regionally. While the first perspective is important today given the high dependence of East Asian and Latin American countries on the markets of the EU, the US and Japan, the second is important in the context of countries' efforts to bring about ever closer regional integration. A large part of liberalization efforts have in the past focused on reducing tariff barriers to facilitate the integration of goods markets across the world and within particular regions. However, countries which were more serious about integration also recognized early on the importance of eliminating trade-reducing measures other than tariffs, so-called non-tariff measures or NTMs, which, if not already present, often sprung up precisely where tariffs were reduced. Country studies which draw on firm level surveys and interviews with government agencies and exporters' associations in East Asia and Latin America are presented in Part II of this report.