A programme designed to improve regional trade performance in Southern and Eastern Africa has decided to employ UNCTAD’s new classification of non-tariff measures (NTMs).
TradeMark Southern Africa is a project designed to improve trade performance and competitiveness within the Eastern and Southern Africa regions.
A data entry platform based on UNCTAD's NTMs classification scheme has been approved by TradeMark with the intention of identifying, monitoring, and - where appropriate - removing NTMs.
UNCTAD has carried out extensive research on NTMs, which are emerging as major barriers to trade, even as trade agreements are reducing the traditional barriers posed by tariffs. NTMs can relate to health and sanitary requirements, environmental concerns, labour practices, and other issues.
With advanced tariff liberalization largely achieved in Southern and Eastern Africa, the principal challenge to streamlining trade is how to address non-tariff and other barriers to trade that contribute to the high cost of doing business across these regions. TradeMark will now start using the UNCTAD classification in an effort to streamline policies related to NTMs.
The adoption of the classification followed a workshop held by UNCTAD to present the new NTMs classification and the new UNCTAD methodology for collecting NTMs data. That workshop was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 2012. It was organized by UNCTAD in cooperation with the African Development Bank.
Identifying, monitoring and removing non-tariff barriers is a priority area for policy harmonization and coordination under a tripartite framework adopted by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the East African Community (EAC). Government officials will be trained in how to use the new classification and in how to enter data in the newly designed template. UNCTAD will actively assist with the training.
The TradeMark project will contribute to work related to a global online database on trade policy measures (known as WITS-TRAINS, a joint endeavour between UNCTAD and the World Bank). It will also contribute to the wider Transparency in Trade (TNT) programme now being implemented jointly by UNCTAD, the World Bank, the International Trade Centre, and the African Development Bank. Under TNT, UNCTAD is the leading and coordinating agency on the subject of NTMs.
