RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

World Trade Report 2015

Speeding up trade: benefits and challenges of implementing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement

The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which was agreed by WTO members at the Ministerial Conference in Bali in December 2013, is the first multilateral trade agreement concluded since the establishment of the WTO in 1995. The 2015 World Trade Report is the first detailed study of the potential impacts of the TFA based on a full analysis of the final agreement text.

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> Press release
> Brochure

The Report’s findings are consistent with existing studies on the scale of potential benefits from trade facilitation, but it goes further by identifying and examining in detail a range of other benefits from the TFA. These include diversification of exports from developing countries and least-developed countries to include new products and partners, increased involvement of these countries in global value chains, expanded participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in international trade, increased foreign direct investment, greater revenue collection and reduced incidence of corruption.

The Report also looks into the challenges of implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement and examines how a new facility, launched in 2014 by WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo, will provide support to help developing countries implement the Agreement.

Published in 2015

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Download pdf:

> Complete report (158 pages; 10.6MB)

> Contents, acknowledgements, disclaimer, DG Foreword and Executive Summary (11 pages; 232KB)

I- The world economy and trade in 2014 and early 2015(18 pages; 522KB)

II- Speeding up trade: benefits and challenges of implementing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement

> A. Introduction (8 pages; 142KB)

> B. Trade facilitation in context (18 pages; 347KB)

> C. The theory and measurement of trade facilitation (16 pages; 287KB)

> D. Estimating the benefits of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (34 pages; 7.1MB)

> E. The challenges of implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement (28 pages; 676KB)

> F. Conclusions (2 pages; 68KB)

> Bibliography, Technical notes, Abbreviations and symbols, List of figures, tables and boxes, WTO members, Previous World Trade Reports (18 pages; 872KB)

 


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The World Trade Report 2016 is now available as an app.

The app includes the full text of the Report plus the underlying data for all charts and tables in the Report. It also contains a video and photos of the launch event.

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