International trade relations are increasingly driven by technical regulations and trade-related standards. The “Meeting Standards, Winning Markets – Trade Standards Compliance 2010” Report (TSCR) presents new approaches to the analysis of developing countries’ capacity to comply with such standards, the challenges they confront, and the implications of their failure to comply. It analyzes border rejection data of the EU and US, highlights the root causes of such rejections with reference to non-compliance with different standards, estimates resulting export losses of developing countries in these markets, and advocates for a more informed policy decision making in development efforts and related technical assistance to enhance the compliance capacity of developing countries. These empirical analyses would not have been possible without the unprecedented access granted by EU and US authorities to their databases on border rejections.
