World Bank Document

tectionism will cause a temporary decline in were affected by NTBs; for manufactured exports,
income. This could lead to a deterioration in the the ratio was 18 percent. The persistent protectioncurrent
account balance, as consumers will cut ism of the main industrial countries has produced
expenditure less than one for one with a tempo- surpluses that are often dumped on world marrary
fall in income.
kets. This inhibits domestic production in developing
countries, even though it would often be more
The new protectionism
efficient than production in the industrial countries.
The tariffs and NTBs used to protect sugar
Tariff reductions undertaken since World War II growers in industrial countries inflict income
were continued in the Tokyo Round negotiations, losses on developing-country sugar exporters
which lowered tariffs to levels not seen before in equal to nearly 10 percent of all the aid from industhis
century. But while the reductions have been trial countries to all developing countries. The loss
extended to the developing countries under the of export revenues is estimated to be almost 30
Most Favored Nation clause, tariffs have been low- percent of the total aid bill (see Box 3.4).
ered less than the average on products of interest * Steel. The volume of steel imported into the
to developing countries. Moreover, the fact that United States fell 3.3 percent a year in 1971-73
tariffs rise as raw materials go through progressive when quotas were imposed. It then grew at an
stages of processing means that the trading system annual rate of 8.3 percent in the mid-1970s after
discourages processing industries in the develop- quotas were removed. But when the trigger price
ing countries.
mechanism was introduced in 1977 it slowed down
A more serious danger to developing countries' to 2.6 percent a year.
exports is the growing use of nontariff barriers * Footwear. Korean exports of footwear to the
(NTBs). On one measure-the proportion of United Kingdom increased by 57.5 percent a year
imports subject to restriction-the extent of NTBs in real terms in 1973-79 but fell 19.1 percent a year
more than doubled in the United States between in 1979 and 1980 after nontariff barriers were
1980 and 1983 and increased by 38 percent in the imposed.
EC. A much larger share of industrial-country NTBs do much more damage to the competitive
imports from developing countries is subject to structure of a market than tariffs. Once the quotas
NTBs than imports from other industrial countries have been fulfilled, marginal foreign competitors
(see Table 3.3). Such ratios do not reflect tightening are excluded from the market-thereby increasing
of existing NTBs and may therefore underestimate the monopoly power of domestic firms. Tariffs do
their increased use. One example is the progres- not remove marginal foreign competitors but simsive
tightening of the Multifibre Arrangement each ply give them a cost disadvantage. From the
time it is renegotiated. exporter's point of view, voluntary export
Commodity by commodity, NTBs do consider- restraints (VERs) are preferable to quotas adminisable
harm:
tered by importers; with VERs, exporters can at
a Agriculture. Although much attention is paid least sell their products at market prices prevailing
to the trade barriers erected against the manufac- in the importing country rather than at the lower
tured exports of developing countries, in fact they world price. However, the long-term damage of
are less prevalent than those against agricultural VERs is likely to be higher than that caused by
exports. In 1983, 29 percent of developing coun- quotas administered by importers: they lock in the
tries' agricultural exports to industrial countries existing set of suppliers and keep out any lowercost
competitors that may emerge. Taking the
Table 3.3 Share of imports subject to nontariff Multifibre Arrangement on textiles as an example
barriers in industrial-country markets, 1983
of a VER, Korea or Hong Kong may not lose too
Percentage of imports from: much-but newcomers like China or Sri Lanka cer-
Industrial All developing Major
Market countries countries borrowers
tainly do.
Even more damaging than the direct costs of
EC 10.2 21.8 24.9 trade restrictions could be the signal they send to
Japan 9.3 10.5 9.6 developing countries about the merits of export-
United States 7.7 12.9 14.5
All industrial countries 10.5 19.8 21.9
oriented policies. Further proliferation of NTBs
could very well revive (and justify) the export pes-
Note: Data are based on 1981 weighted averages for all world trade in simism that prevailed in many developing counall
products except fuels.
Source: World Bank data.
tries in the 1930s and 1940s. Yet the empirical evi-
40