UNCTAD and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) will update their Non-Tariff Measures database for the following ten ASEAN countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet nam.
A joint UNCTAD-ERIA training course for 40 government officials and think tank leaders from all 10 countries and the ASEAN secretariat, held in Thailand from 20 to 22 March 2018, initiated the data collection update.
During 2015 and 2016 the two organizations established a close partnership and conducted the first comprehensive NTM data mapping in ASEAN.
The NTMs database (asean.i-tip.org) provides information on a broad range of policy instruments including traditional trade policy instruments, such as quotas and price controls, as well as regulatory and technical measures that stem from important non-trade objectives related to health and environmental protection - Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
The work of ERIA and UNCTAD has been welcomed in ASEAN Ministerial Declarations and the data are being used by ASEAN members for their regional integration process.
UNCTAD coordinates the global effort to enhance the transparency in trade-related regulations.
UNCTAD's database (trains.unctad.org) has been developed with its partners and covers more than 100 countries and nearly 90% of world trade.
The data update in ASEAN will take several months, followed by a validation workshop in autumn 2018 and a joint ERIA-UNCTAD Report on NTMs for all ten ASEAN countries.
