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Trade Therapy: Deepening Cooperation to Strengthen Pandemic Defenses
WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. The WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) must be fully implemented to reap all its benefits. High-income countries were required to implement all the TFA’s provisions by 2017. But the TFA allows low- and middle-income members and least developed members to decide when they are prepared to implement its disciplines and to identify measures that require international capacity-building assistance to implement. As a result, implementation has been gradual, and the rates of implementation vary by income group (figure 2.3).
Services trade policies affecting medical goods trade Restrictions on logistics, transport, and distribution services hinder trade in medical goods. These sectors, particularly health logistics, face various impediments that not only adversely affect trade in medical goods but also prevent health services from being Figure 2.3 Progress on implementation commitments under the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Global
74.4
Low-income
46.8
High-income
95.0 85.5
Upper-middle-income Lower-middle-income
53.6 0
20
40
60
80
100
Share of TFA commitments implemented (%) Commitments by developed members for immediate implementation as of February 22, 2017 Commitments by developing members for immediate implementation as of February 22, 2017 (or a year later for least developed countries) Implementation commitments by developing members made up to March 2022 Implementation commitments by developing members made to March 2022, upon receipt of capacity-building support
Source: World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement Database (TFAD), http://www .tfadatabase.org. Note: The bars show the share of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) commitments that WTO members agreed to implement (using data as of March 2022). For example, globally (top bar), 74.4 percent of commitments that WTO Members have agreed to implement—23.3 percent by the WTO’s “developed” members by the February 22, 2017, deadline; 39.0 percent by “developing” members by the same date (or a year later for least developed countries); 7.8 percent by developing members up to March 2022; and 4.3 percent by developing members agreed upon receipt of capacity-building support up to March 22. “Developed” members in the chart cover Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Country income categories are according to World Bank classifications.
