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文献出处：Weyerbrock, S., & Xia, T. (2010). Technical trade barriers in US/Europe agricultural trade. Agribusiness, 16(2), 235-251.
Technical Trade Barriers in US/Europe
Agricultural Trade
Silvia Weyerbrock and Tian Xia
ABSTRACT
Technical barriers strongly affect US/European agricultural and food trade. A 1996 USDA survey identifies 57 questionable European regulations affecting US agricultural exports with an estimated trade impact of $899.55 million. This article identifies European and US technical regulations that impede bilateral trade. The article provides a background for ca studies and draws conclusions regarding the future role of technical barriers. We expect that technical barriers in US/Europe trade will proliferate in the future becau of changes in trade rules, higher demand for food safety and various food quality attributes, and EU membership of Eastern European countries. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1. INTRODUCTION羊肉怎么炖
Technical trade barriers strongly impede trade in agricultural and food products. In this article we u the term technical barriers to trade (TBTs) to refer to obstacles arising from both sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical regulations and measures. Although such regulations and measures are frequently motivated by domestic health and safety concerns, they may be ud as non-transparent, difficult-to-challenge trade barriers.A1996 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) survey finds that the US may be losing $4.97 billion exports becau of questionable regulations (Thornsbury, Roberts, DeRemer, & Orden, 1997; Roberts & DeRemer, 1997). In future, technical barriers are likely to increa becau of incread demand for food and environmental safety.
Moreover, owing to the recent strengthening of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules on traditional barriers such as tariffs and quantitative non-tariff barriers, countries may substitute traditional by technical barriers (Roberts & DeRemer, 1997; Hooker and Caswell, 1995; Wang and Caswell, 1997). Finally, new technologies and new products will lead to changes in regulatory policies, which may create trade frictions.言情推荐
学习的途径有哪些This article identifies European and US SPS and technical barriers that impede bilateral food trade. We concentrate on US/Europe agricultural trade for four reasons:
1. Europe is an important trading partner of the US. In 1997, 20% of US exports were directed to Europe, while 20.6% of US imports originated from Europe (USDA/ FAS, 1998).
2. A 1996 USDA survey, put together by Roberts and DeRemer, identifies 57 questionable European regulations affecting US agricultural exports with an estimated trade impact of $899.55 million. Six regulations account for 61.8% of the trade impact (Thornsbury et al., 1997; Roberts & DeRemer, 1997). For confidentiality reasons, Roberts and DeRemer could not identify specific issues. Our article identifies recent and current specific European and US technical barriers that affect bilateral food trade.
3. Given their high income, US and European consumers demand a high level of food and environmental safety. Moreover, the strong US and European farmers’ lobbies demand support. The efforts of both groups will contribute to stricter SPS and technical regulations and the growing incidence of technical trade barriers.
4. Europe and the US are pioneers in developing new technologies and products and, therefore, new regulations.
The literature on technical barriers is in its infancy. This is due to the lack of a commonly agreed upo
n definition and comprehensive data on the incidence of the measures. Moreover, estimating the trade and welfare effects of technical barriers is difficult. Roberts and DeRemer (1997) describe veral challenges. One challenge is to estimate compliance costs bad on often merely qualitative information. Estimating the
每月院感知识培训内容benefits of technical barriers is also difficult, becau they may be bad on preventing low-probability, highconquence events. Finally, becau of the bilateral nature of many technical barriers, economic models need to incorporate product differentiation and market power.
Most empirical studies of technical barriers at this point consist of ca studies that provide evidence of specific disputes (Ndayinga & Kiny, 1994). Other rearchers or policymakers have put a figure on lected technical barriers by approximating the amount of trade affected by the regulation. The objective of this article is to pinpoint questionable technical barriers in US/Europe trade. The survey provides a background for ca studies and permits conclusions regarding the future role of technical barriers in US/Europe trade. In Section 2, we provide an overview of agricultural trade between the US and Europe. Section 3 defines technical trade barriers and surveys WTO rules applying to such measures. In Section 4, we first report results of the 1996 USDA survey on technical trade barriers (Thornsbury et al., in press; Roberts & DeRemer, 1997). We then identify sp
ecific problem areas. Section 5 includes our conclusion.
2. TRADE
This ction surveys bilateral US/Europe trade and trade within Europe of agricultural and food products. For this purpo, we divide most of Europe into three blocs: the European Union (EU), Eastern Europe (EE), and the former Soviet Union (FSU)/Russia.
2.1. US/Europe Trade
In 1997, the US agricultural exports to European countries amounted to $11.3 billion and US imports from Europe to $7.4 billion (Table 1). Twenty percent of US exports were directed to Europe, whereas 21.4% of US imports originated from Europe (USDA/FAS, 1998).US/EU. Within Europe, the EU is the largest export market for US food products. In 1997, 77.9% of US exports to Europe went to the EU. Major US exports are soybeans, feed and fodder, and tree nuts. The EU is also the dominant European source of US agricultural and food imports. The US imported $7 billion agricultural
goods from the EU—mainly snack food, vegetable oils, and chee (USDA/FAS, 1998). US/Russia.
三亚介绍The cond most important trading partner of the US in Europe, the FSU, received $1.5 billion of US agricultural exports (Table 1). More than 80% of the exports (mainly poultry meat, red meat, and wheat) go to Russia. US poultry exports are highly dependent on the Russian market. Russia’s imports from the US vastly exceeded its exports to the US of $29 million. The US imports Russian dairy products, hides and skins, and esntial oils (USDA/FAS, 1998). US/Eastern Europe. The agricultural and food trade between the US and Eastern Europe has been volatile in recent years. In 1997, the US merely exported $282 million US agricultural goods to Eastern European countries. Wheat, poultry meat, and coar grains dominate US exports. The US import shares for Poland, Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are 5.7%, 8.0%, 4.4%, and 0.6%, respectively (USDA/FAS, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1997e). The US import shares are small becau of unfavorable import access conditions. Compared to the US, members of the EU, Central European Free TradeArea (CEFTA), and European Free Trade Area (EFTA), and many developing countries have preferential access to Eastern European markets. For example, Romanian tariffs on EU chee imports are 18.8% whereas tariffs on US chee imports amount to 240.0% (USDA/FAS, 1997e). Nevertheless, the US Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) considers Poland, the most populouscountry in Eastern Europe, as a top 10 emerging market worldwide (USDA/FAS, 1997c). About 2.86% or $212.1 million of US agricultural and food imports came from Eastern Europe. Easte
rn Europe’s most important export goods are fruit and vegetable juice, tobacco, and red meat (USDA/FAS, 1998).
最有意义的一件事2.2. Intra-Europe Trade
恐龙园门票EU/Eastern Europe. The EU dominates Eastern Europe’s agricultural trad e. In 1995, EU exports to Eastern Europe totaled $4.4 billion—15.5 times the value of the US exports to Eastern Europe (Table 1). In most Eastern European countries imports from the EU exceed 40% of total imports. The top three EU exports were meat, fruits and vegetables, and coffee, tea, and spices. During the same time period, EU imports from Eastern Europe were $3.3 billion. Top EU imports from Eastern Europe were meat, fruits and vegetables, and live animals (OECD, 1996).
The EU’s large market s hare in Eastern Europe is due to geographic proximity and the Europe Agreements. The Europe Agreements establish bilateral preferential trade between the EU and various Eastern European and Baltic countries. Overall, the agreements appear to have promoted EU exports to Eastern Europe rather than Eastern European exports to the EU. Only Bulgaria and Hungary now have an agricultural trade surplus with the EU (Bojenc, 1996). The EU has granted limited access to Eastern European food products for which it has a surplus—often products of inter
est to Eastern Europe (Tangermann, 1994). Becau of administrative problems, Eastern European countries have not ud many preferential agreements (Frohberg & Hartmann, 1996). EU/Russia. Russia is also a major trading partner of the EU. Russia imported $4.6 billion agricultural and food products from the EU and exported $812 million products to the EU in 1995. The major EU exports to Russia are beverages, meat, and coffee, tea, and spices; top EU imports from Russia are fish, hides and skins, and oil eds (Table 1).
In 1996, the EU accounted for 15.0% of total Russian agricultural imports while the USreprented 9.9% of Russian imports (OECD, 1996). The EU and Russia signed a partnership and cooperation agreement in 1994. There is no evidence that US exporters face discriminatory tariffs compared to their Western European competitors.
3. WHAT IS A TECHNICAL BARRIER TO TRADE?
US/Europe agricultural trade is strongly affected by technical barriers to trade. As mentioned above there is no commonly agreed upon definition of technical barriers to trade. Rearchers have propod definitions bad on intent, economic impact, and instruments ud.
In this survey we follow a definition propod by Thornsbury et al. (1997) and Roberts and DeRemer
(1997). They define technical barriers as “in ternationally divergent regulations and standards governing the sale of products in national markets which have as their prima facie objective the correction of market inefficiencies stemming from externalities associated with the production, distribution, and consumption of the p roducts.” This definition includes standards of identity, measure, and quality, and SPS, global commons,
