Using Trade Deals for Non-Members

I met this week with a European company.  Their firm has an extensive global footprint, including factories in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. 

Because they are producing products out of Vietnam and Malaysia, I asked about whether the firm has been following the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.  Both countries are members of the TPP and many of the company’s final consumers can be found in other TPP members like Singapore and Japan.

“No.  We are a European company, so we didn’t think we could use the TPP.”

This is actually a common answer, but it is not necessarily true.  Many firms can take advantage of the TPP’s benefits, regardless of the location of company incorporation.

Rather than worry about the ownership structure of the company, firms need to consider whether they “substantially transform” products in TPP members or deliver services or hold physical investments in member countries.  This is not unique to the TPP, as the same thing holds true for other trade agreements like the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), bilateral deals, and future regional agreements.

Admittedly, this can be complicated, but the potential benefits to firms from getting this right can be significant.  Other companies can also get cheaper supplies and inputs from using agreements like the TPP.  Consumers in member countries can receive a greater variety of products at different price points as well.

Go back to the European firm.  The factories in Vietnam and Malaysia make extensive or even exclusive use of raw materials sourced domestically.  These inputs are then used to create the company’s final products. 

Trade agreements come with rules (Rules of Origin or ROOs) that are designed to keep non-member firms from taking advantage of the preferences granted by the deal.  After all, if a non-member could simply trans-ship items through a member and get better benefits, the purpose of the trade deal would be lost for member country firms. 

Companies cannot just engage in simple repackaging, minor assembly, break down bulk shipments into smaller quantities or add several items together in a package to make a different item, to gain access to the agreement either.  Instead, items must be substantially transformed in a member country to qualify under the rules for preferences.

Here is where life can get complicated.  Each trade agreement has different rules for what constitutes substantial transformation.  The two main rules are value content (VC) and change in tariff heading or tariff classification (CTH or CTC). 

For most ASEAN agreements, governments have used regional value content (RVC) rules.  This requires a certain percentage of the final good to be made with content (materials and labor) from member countries.  Generally, the percentage is set at 40% or greater. 

In other words, what matters is not whether or not the company is registered in Holland or Bangladesh, but whether the final good contains at least 40% content sourced from within ASEAN. 

The final item has to be shipped to a member country.  A firm cannot create products with ASEAN content for shipment under ASEAN preferences back into Holland or Bangladesh, since these preferences (benefits like lower tariffs) only apply within member states.

A second method of qualifying for preferences involves a change in tariff heading.  Again, this can be slightly complicated, but put simply if the raw materials and other components or inputs are considered one type of product and end up being exported into other member countries with an entirely different tariff heading, the product can qualify for benefits even if the value content is not above 40%.

As an example, consider the production of beer.  If the agreement allows the use of CTC or CTH rules, the raw materials of water and hops and so forth are transformed into a different product—beer.  Since water, hops and other items are classified differently than beer, the product can be eligible for benefits under the trade agreement.

It does not matter whether the company producing beer is headquartered in the country of production.  What matters is the location of the factory (in a member country), the ingredient sourcing for RVC or transformation in tariff heading rules, and the final destination of the products (for sale in a member country).

What sounds relatively simple can be unnecessarily complicated at the outset, of course, as firms have to comb through agreements to see what rules apply for which products into which markets.  For example, even CTC rules can vary as officials may select different levels of aggregation in tariff headings (2, 4 or 6 digit level changes in tariff classifications are required). 

For the European firm I was meeting, however, no matter how the rules are calculated, production with nearly 100% local content combined with final products that should qualify under CTC rules no matter how such tariff rules are calculated, the company ought to have no problems taking advantage of the TPP once it is signed and enters into force. 

Hence the company ought to be taking an active interest in, and planning ahead for, the entry into force of the TPP.  Despite being a European company in registration and brands, the local factory production from Malaysia and Vietnam should be eligible for the lower tariff rates coming in the TPP.  In the sector for this firm, these benefits—particularly tariff reductions from current levels—should be substantial as well, since this industry faces substantial tariff obstacles in most countries in the region.

Stay tuned for future posts on some reasons why firms do not seem to take advantage of these benefits and why the system as a whole does not benefit from the proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements.

***Talking Trade is a blog post written by Deborah Elms, Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre, Singapore***

The Other Half: Dealing with U.S.-Japan Auto Disputes

My last post covered one of the most difficult topics in trade negotiations—the problems with agriculture.  This issue is partially confounding a solution to the ongoing U.S.-Japan bilateral negotiations related to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

But agriculture (specifically the fight over Japan’s five “sacred” items) is only half the battle.  In exchange for receiving more access to Japan’s important and protected agricultural markets, the United States is supposed to allow improved access to its auto market.   However, since the auto market barriers into the United States are not seen as sufficiently problematic to match the barriers in agriculture, the Americans are also asking for a number of changes to let more cars and auto parts flow into Japan.

This fight over autos between the United States and Japan has been underway for decades.  Literally.  Equally astonishing, there appear to have been very few changes along the way in the tone or tenor of the argument despite a radically different market environment over the same period.

My Ph.D. dissertation was partially about auto fights of the late 1980s and mid-1990s.  Sometimes, listening to the arguments made now around the topic, I could swear that nothing has changed in the past 25 years.  Many of the very same people who were present all those years ago are the same folks driving these negotiations.

The United States has two clear barriers to trade in autos.  For passenger cars, the tariff is currently 2.5%.  For trucks, the tariff rises to 25%.  Japan would like to see both removed.

What makes this whole argument rather surreal is that Japan exports almost no finished autos from Japan into the United States.  Instead, in the wake of NAFTA provisions on car manufacturing, Japanese auto manufacturers largely moved their production networks into NAFTA countries. 

About 85% of all Nissan autos sold in the United States are domestically produced.  For Toyota, the number is about 70%, with mainly just Lexus models built outside NAFTA.  Honda’s figures are higher at 95% production inside the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

Even if the auto tariff of 2.5% were eliminated tomorrow, it is unlikely to drive dramatically different trade patterns.  In spite of this, the Americans are apparently insisting on extraordinarily long phase out periods of up to 25 years. 

Think about that for a moment—a quarter century to phase out a 2.5% tariff on products that are largely domestically produced.

I would hate to think about the sheer number of hours spent arguing over this point across the decades.  Even in the past year, officials have invested hundreds of hours in conference rooms around the world hashing out how to make this tiny tariff go away.

Of course, the other piece of the equation is figuring out how to get more finished American cars into Japan.  This is an equally nonsensical fight.  

Take the specific case of General Motors.  After complaining about limited opportunities to sell cars in Japan for more than 3 decades, how many models does GM make with right-hand drive that could be sold in Japan?  Answer:  two. 

So the Americans are fighting vigorously to get more cars into the Japanese market that are just as unsuitable as they were decades ago. 

The company, I am sure, would argue that the math does not justify the tremendous investment in creating suitable products.  GM has 34 outlets in Japan.  (For comparison, Toyota has more than 4,700 dealerships in the United States.)  If GM sold 1400 cars in Japan, it would mean only 41 sales per outlet in an entire year. 

GM and Ford didn’t even bother to show up at the Toyota Motor Show for four consecutive years.  

Because the volume is so small, it is hard to justify the investment of a full garage to service the cars.  Without a garage, consumers that might take the plunge and buy a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle, also have to factor in very high prices for parts and servicing. 

In the last heated battles over autos, the American insisted that they could not sell more cars into Japan because of various barriers to entry, including an inspection system that favored local producers.  While many of these issues remain, it is worth noting that European car manufacturers have continued to experience market growth.

European brands made the decision decades ago to invest in their own dealerships and not rely on Japanese-brand outlets to hawk their goods like the Americans.  European brands brought in garages and auto parts.  And, critically, they built cars that were suitable for, and adapted to, the local market.

Now, European sales still fall short of what might be expected in a different type of market setting.  Total foreign auto sales still account for less than 5% of all autos sold in Japan.  But European sales leave American brands in the dust. 

BMW regularly alters models to meet customer needs, including introducing a range of diesel and hybrid autos that are in demand from consumers.  Volkswagen sells the largest number of foreign-branded cars in Japan, with a strong focus on economy to mid-range models.

Certainly, there are still obstacles to selling vehicles in Japan.  For example, Japan has a preferential tax system that rewards domestic vehicles with tiny motors.  Nearly a third of the market consists of autos with engines of less than 660 cc.  Neither the Americans nor the Europeans have models that fit this profile.

Japan also has its own safety standards that do not match either the EU or the United States.  (Although frankly, this could also be turned around--the EU and the U.S. do not have standards matching Japanese auto regulations making it difficult for Japanese brands to thrive in both markets without potentially extensive modifications.) Getting a new model certified in Japan can be extremely expensive.

They say that generals usually prepare to fight the last war.  This adage appears to be equally true in the auto debates.  Instead of focusing on competitive challenges, the Big 3 blame Japan’s supposed manipulation of currency as a key impediment to selling more cars.  Again—this is an incredible flashback to the fights of the 1980s and 1990s when the exact same arguments were used by the Big 3.

If currency values could somehow be adjusted only for autos and not for the economy as a whole, perhaps currency misalignments might be a genuine complaint.  However, it is certainly difficult to argue that currency stops American sales and not European sales.  Or that it somehow affects cars more than other goods.

In short, the United States auto industry has been making the same arguments about the closed car and parts markets in Japan, about currency manipulation, and about the necessity for tariffs to protect the domestic market for decades.  It is time to close the debate, sign the bilateral deal on the table for autos and move on to new, 21st century issues in the TPP.

***Talking Trade is a blog post written by Deborah Elms, Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre, Singapore***

Why is Agriculture So Difficult for Trade Deals?

Seoul—As we wait for Japan’s Prime Minister Abe to discuss the U.S.-Japan bilateral talks during his address to the United States Congress, it is a good time to discuss why agricultural trade regularly confounds trade negotiations.  After all, the bilateral discussions between Japan and the United States, part of the parallel path in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, is largely focused on agricultural products in Japan’s 5 “sacred” sectors (rice, beef/pork, dairy, wheat, and sugar). 

In short, the major obstacle is that agriculture is sensitive in every single country.  As a result, more than 60 years of negotiations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO), made only modest progress towards opening agricultural markets. 

This has left significant barriers to trade in food and beverages in different countries. WTO members now have widely varying commitments to tariff levels across different types of products.  Newer members and developed countries generally have lower tariff levels, but even relatively low tariffs conceal some significant tariff peaks.  Tariff levels and tariff peaks are significantly greater in agricultural sectors than in non-agricultural goods.

Tariff peaks are where general levels are low, but suddenly, for example, the Japanese tariff for a type of potato (konnyaku) faces levels of more than 1400 percent.  Peaks are frequently found in other agricultural items like rice, dairy, wheat, soybeans, edible oils, certain spices, as well as some specific items that are often unique to individual countries. 

If the tariff peak is high enough, no foreign products can be found in the marketplace at all.  Removing these peaks is particularly difficult, since they mark the most highly sensitive products that have been sheltered behind tariff walls for a significant time.

While most trade agreements do not even try to address the highest tariff peaks, the TPP is supposed to open all trade.  This means contentious discussions around highly sensitive agricultural items and sectors.  As we get close to the end, officials have had to finally grapple with these concerns. 

Another problem that is supposed to be addressed by the TPP for agricultural producers is tariff escalation.  This is where the tariff on a raw agricultural product like unprocessed coffee beans could face a tariff of 5 percent.  But roasted beans are charged 10 percent.  Ground beans could be 20 percent and bottled Starbucks Frappuccino drinks could be slapped with 45 percent tariffs.  The example is hypothetical, but the problem of tariff escalation is quite common. 

Escalation is a major problem, particularly for developing countries, because rising tariffs on higher processing can prevent firms from moving up the value chain into higher value items.  High tariffs on processed goods can mean that products are often not competitive and cannot capture the highest value.  Firms are stuck shipping raw coffee beans and not bottled coffee drinks where the highest money can be found.

As my last blog post noted, agricultural trade is particularly held hostage to problems of collective action.  Consumers benefit from lower tariff barriers to agricultural products.  They get a wider selection of items at potentially lower prices.  In areas with significant tariff peaks, consumer benefits could be substantial.  But no consumer ever lobbied government for cheaper butter or more soybean options. 

By contrast, farmers are frequently well organized and fiercely protective of their market space.  Any attempt to change the status quo is strongly resisted. 

This is true in the TPP members.  It is also true in non-members, who have to decide whether they want to join in the future.  I am sitting in a workshop in Seoul, sponsored by Korea’s Rural Economic Institute, to discuss agricultural changes around potential TPP membership.  The level of concern is palpable.

Korea will argue that their farmers tend to be working small scale, family plots.  Agricultural production, especially for an item like rice, has strong historical significance.  If rice were not produced domestically, wouldn’t it wreck Korea’s countryside and toss farmers ignominiously out of work?  Won’t the rural areas suffer irreparable harm and destruction?

No matter what happens in the TPP, it is unlikely that South Korea will witness the total destruction of the countryside and the complete loss of rice production.  Rice will still be grown in Korea.   It will continue to be consumed domestically and much of this production will be grown locally.  But Korean rice might someday be be exported more widely across TPP members as well.

Deeply held concerns about rice and other products, I should note, are not unique to Korea.  Japanese farmers make similar points.  So do growers in potential members like Taiwan.  In fact, I suspect that nearly every member and potential member faces similar kinds of issues.  Even in agricultural export powerhouses like the United States or New Zealand, it is possible to find small-scale, family farms that worry about increasing agricultural competition in their particular sectors.

It is important to note that agreements like the TPP do not mean that agricultural trade across the board will become completely open overnight.  Highly sensitive sectors will clearly be opened last.  For most members, the final items to be phased into the deal are likely to be agricultural products.

In addition, agriculture can use specific procedures to avoid complete opening overnight.  In the U.S.-Japan bilateral, Japan has not agreed to open the last five “sacred” sectors immediately.  Instead, we expect that Japan will, for instance, agree to drop tariffs on a very small quantity of rice for a bit of time.  The quantity will be specified by a quota that is likely to be opened for only 100,000 tons of rice from the United States at the outset. 

Over time, the goal is to gradually open the quota for more rice (or other sensitive agricultural products) at lower tariffs.  In time, the quota could even disappear all together, leaving the market completely open at some (likely) quite distant time. 

For beef products, frozen beef imported into Japan may fall from the current 38.5 percent tariff level to 9% for the United States (and hopefully this will also be extended to all TPP members).  Pork for Japan used to be split into three categories.  Now tariffs will drop from between 482-547 yen/kg down to 50 yen/kg with tariffs on the highest price pork falling to 0 tariffs. 

These commitments fall short of complete free trade.  The tariffs have not fallen to 0, at least for the near term.  However, it would have been impossible to lower tariffs of more than 777 percent on polished rice to 0 right away.  The other TPP members recognize the difficulties of forcing such a drastic change on a highly sensitive sector.  The goal is to get to free trade, but reality often intrudes--making the transition relatively long and slow.

In addition, given the sensitive nature of agriculture in every member state, governments have strong reasons to view deviations from fully open markets with a more relaxed eye.  After all, each government likely has its own sensitive products that it would like to support and grant farmers additional time for adjustment.

The real trick in a multi-party trade agreement is to grant sufficient flexibility in timeframes and commitments to allow everyone to remain inside the agreement while not diluting the outcome so much that the benefits are lost.  In an agreement like the TPP that promised coverage for all products, it has been difficult to manage. 

We may learn tomorrow how well the Americans and Japanese accomplished this delicate balance in agricultural trade.

***Talking Trade is a blog written by Deborah Elms, Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre, Singapore***

Defending the Indefensible in TPP

As the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations head towards conclusion, I am increasingly fielding questions from people about the challenging final issues that remain.  This post covers a range of topics that stem largely from officials trying to defend policies that appear indefensible to outsiders.  Most are rooted in specific local politics or interpretations of domestic conditions that may be under threat in the TPP.

Why is Japan fighting so hard for rice protections?  My interviewer on CNBC this week asked again why Japan’s government is ready to fight to the finish over issues of rice.  After all, the agricultural sector in Japan contributes a tiny sliver to overall economic output.  The average age of Japan’s farmers is heading towards 70 and very few farm full-time.  In exchange for historical protections that include a rice tariff of 777 percent to keep out foreign polished rice, Japanese consumers pay extraordinarily high prices for rice and agricultural products of all sorts.

This situation is not unique to Japan.  Like many countries, the political system has been stacked in favor of rural voters, who are overweighted in the parliament relative to their population size. 

Mansur Olsen, the Nobel-prize winning economist, highlighted problems of collective action several decades ago.  While it is true that consumers as a whole would benefit from lower rice and agricultural prices, the problems of collective action mean that these diffuse interests rarely result in activity by large groups that would receive modest benefits.  By contrast, Japanese rice farmers clearly grasp the competitive challenges that they will face from the removal of barriers to trade.  They have every incentive to make their unhappiness known in loud and clear terms to political leaders.

In Japan, these concentrated agricultural producer interests can be further funneled to politicians and bureaucrats through a strong and entrenched bureaucracy of their own.  Japanese farmers are also brought together by JA Zenchu, an agricultural cooperative that (for the moment) comes with large numbers of staff and considerable economic strength.  They can mobilize significant numbers of voters and ensure that their supporters make it to the polls on election day.

Why are the Americans fighting so hard on auto tariff reductions?  The United States currently levies a 2.5% tariff on imported passenger cars.  In the TPP, Japan is pushing hard to get this tariff eliminated as soon as possible.  Like all TPP rules, it would apply to TPP member firms only and would not be extended (through the TPP) to other country companies.

What makes American opposition to tariff reductions so puzzling is that much of Japan’s auto production now takes place inside the United States and the rest of North America.  As a result of the rules set down more than 20 years ago in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), auto producers that want to take advantage of the agreement must produce a substantial percentage of the final vehicles in NAFTA countries.  Hence, few Japanese autos are likely to benefit from a lowering of tariffs on autos in the TPP since most are already created inside the American domestic marketplace where they have never paid tariffs on the final products.

For more than 30 years, the U.S. auto industry has been uncomfortable with Japan’s access to the American market.  Maintaining a minor tariff for a substantial length of time is one way to help encourage wavering members of Congress to avoid blocking the TPP agreement on behalf of the domestic auto industry. 

Why can’t Canada change the supply management system for dairy and poultry?  The TPP is supposed to be a high quality, 21st century trade agreement that includes all products with no exceptions and a goal of lowering tariffs to zero.  In this context, the myriad system of supports that Canada uses to protect domestic dairy and poultry farmers from competition (primarily from the Americans) ought to be phased out over time.

But Canada faces the same sort of collective action problems on agricultural reform that Japan confronts.  Although Canada’s consumers would clearly benefit from lower prices on a wider range of dairy and egg products, the industry is much better organized and can mobilize significant resources to fight change.  So far, the industry has been impressively successful in keeping supply management off the negotiating table, including (so far) in the TPP talks.

Why won’t the Americans open up the domestic sugar market to Australian sugar?  This question stems from an odd quirk in the current negotiating environment in the TPP.  Although officials are aiming for a high quality result, negotiators have to operate in a world of existing, overlapping trade agreements from the past.  These previous deals will not go away once the TPP is signed.

In an existing bilateral trade agreement between the United States and Australia, sugar was carved out or excluded from the deal.  At the time, it was part of a “grand bargain” of sorts that let Australia carve out investor-state dispute settlement while the Americans protected their sugar industry.  If Australia gets better access to the American sugar market in the TPP, it will undermine the provisions of the past deal.

The sugar industry in the United States has been amazingly well protected since WWII.  Production of sugar cane is highly concentrated in a handful of farmers.  But production of sugar beets is spread much more widely.  Large numbers of members of the U.S. Congress represent states or districts that grow sugar across diverse and politically important parts of the country.   These representatives have always responded to the money and influence of the domestic sugar lobby and the TPP is no exception.  Sugar changes in the TPP that would allow greater imports of Australian sugar have been vigorously fought off.

Why don’t American union groups support the TPP?  This question came to me with great puzzlement at a meeting of ASEAN trade union leaders this week in Kuala Lumpur.  From their perspective, any agreement that raises economic growth is likely to result in additional jobs.  With new markets opening up that were previously closed or difficult and expensive to penetrate, firms have new opportunities for expansion and job creation.

Yet American labor leaders have come out loudly and vocally against the TPP.  Union membership in the United States has been falling for some time.   Labor leaders fear that TPP changes will exacerbate the loss of union jobs in the United States, since many union members are blue-collar workers. 

What is especially strange about the objection to the TPP by labor leaders is that most union members are actually government employees of all stripes, including teachers or public health care employees, who are unlikely to be affected by this trade agreement.  The fastest growing segment of unionization is taking place among services employees.  If the TPP leads to economic growth, the service sector is also likely to expand.  Many of these jobs, like hotel and restaurant workers, are not going to be outsourced.  In fact, it could certainly be argued that easier movement of people across the TPP for business travel and tourism should bring additional jobs to American services union workers. 

We can argue about the quality of such jobs and the appropriate pay scales for workers, but the TPP should not affect either of these elements of service sector union jobs.

Why are some TPP members fighting over specific rules changes for one class of medicines?  One of the most hotly contested arguments in the entire TPP agreement has been about appropriate patent length protections for a class of pharmaceutical medicines.  Should biologic drugs receive 5, 8 or 12 years of coverage before going off patent and becoming available to generic drug manufacturers? 

What is strange about this fight is that biologic drugs like the flu vaccines are extremely hard to manufacture.  They cannot be easily reverse engineered.  Each dose can be unique, as biologic drugs are not simple copies of one another. 

Most TPP members do not have (and may never have) the capabilities to manufacturing pharmaceutical products.  Even fewer will be able to create biologic medicines.  Thus, the fight over patent length protection does not make sense for most members.  However, many countries appear to have seized on this issue as a tool for achieving their negotiating objectives elsewhere in the agreement.  It is more of a bargaining chip than a serious point of disagreement.

Closing a deal is hard.  Given the nature of trade negotiations, the most difficult, politically sensitive issues are left to the very end of discussions.  It is only after the broadest balance of interests is largely hammered out that leaders can make a clear-eyed assessment of their total gains and losses throughout a complex negotiation.  Given the determination of benefits and challenges, countries will decide whether they will continue to defend largely economically indefensible policies or whether such programs will be adjusted in the wake of the TPP.  The time for sorting out such decisions and making appropriate calculations is now.

***Talking Trade is a blog post written by Dr. Deborah Elms, Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre, Singapore***

Using e-Commerce to Help Smaller Companies

One of the fastest, easiest and lowest cost ways for smaller companies to join the global marketplace is to use e-Commerce.  By harnessing the power of the Internet to connect with suppliers, producers, lead firms, and consumers, firms can sell their goods and services to a much wider audience than would otherwise be possible.

As the clearest example of this phenomenon, check out the attached policy report.  This document, Challenges of e-Commerce for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Asia, benefitted from the skills of a graphic designer in Pakistan.  The staff of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore never met the designer.  Instead, the entire process was handled via the web. 

This designer charged one-tenth the price of a locally engaged person.   In the end, the magic of e-Commerce allowed one small firm in Singapore to support an even smaller firm in Pakistan and create a win-win situation for both companies in delivering a high quality service to a wide range of readers and government officials in Asia.

The report examined many of the challenges and opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the region that are engaged in e-Commerce.  It was generously financed by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is intended to provide a small sample of case studies to launch our larger project on the topic.

Despite the promise of greater economic growth available by using e-Commerce, the cases highlight a set of challenges that smaller firms often face. 

Small firms, by definition, have limited resources including, especially, fewer staff members.  This makes getting things done more challenging and increases the premium on hiring and retaining quality workers.  Manpower issues of all sorts are a challenge for many of the SMEs profiled in our study. 

The Singapore-based firms have particularly struggled with tight access to foreign talent at various levels. But most of the firms in the region have also faced escalating wage requests and difficulties keeping employees adequately trained for their tasks.

Rising costs elsewhere, including ever-increasing rental charges, have also proven difficult to manage.  Purchasing facilities like office, warehouse or factory space may not be possible, depending on the type of firm and ownership structure.  Land acquisition is often difficult or time consuming. 

These problems may plague all types of smaller firms, not just those trying to work in the e-Commerce space.  For companies that want to buy and sell online, they have additional issues to consider.  Creating and maintaining an excellent web presence is very difficult for smaller companies.  A lack of knowledge about existing online platforms has lead many companies to create their own customized solutions. 

However, creating a functioning website can be quite expensive and often requires hiring staff with specific skills.  Getting employees with website skills can be particularly problematic for smaller companies that may not need someone full time and have to pay a premium wage to get skilled workers to join smaller firms.

Companies do not have the time or resources to invest in expensive hardware and storage systems.  Hence, most smaller firms need to be able to find other vendors with dramatically better abilities to manage e-Commerce platforms at lower cost, greater reliability, and improved security. 

Finally, our firm-level interviews turned up many examples of companies struggling with payments issues.  These challenges ranged from getting online payment mechanisms set up on the websites in the first place to crazy high fees imposed on companies wanting to set up online shopping carts.  The charges for online card processing can be very steep for smaller firms with limited cash flow.

Government officials trying to address the specific challenges faced by such an assortment of companies struggle to respond appropriately.  Because SMEs are small and numerous, getting feedback from such firms is always harder than finding out about the concerns of larger companies with greater resources.

Most small companies do not recognize that many of their specific challenges could be addressed by government policies.  They often regard their situation as simply part of a background environment that is immutable.  For example, firms may have a hard time managing multiple bank terminal machines as required by different bank and financial institutions.  Government could fairly easily sort out this obstacle to firms by requiring that terminal machines function for multiple financial institutions. 

When asked by government, however, most companies might not complain about the banking terminal issues to agencies or ministries.  This is not because the issue is insignificant, but because firms think that a problem like this could only be addressed by banks.  Such a complaint is not seen as a policy or regulatory issue.  Hence, officials that ask for “policy feedback” may not receive as much useful input as they might have expected. 

Governments in the region, and particularly Singapore, offer many different types of support programs for small firms.  These range from seed capital to training courses to salary supplements for different types of staff.  However, for a small company, managing these programs may require significant investments from staff members. 

Such programs also frequently take time—up to six months—to completely process through complex bureaucracies.  For companies, speed to market can be critical and delays along the way can be disastrous.  Hence, many firms do not bother to take up government assistance at all because they would prefer to just self-finance or otherwise sort out their own issues than face time and paperwork delays and hassles. 

Another challenge many types of companies face in trying to manage e-Commerce operations is a lack of understanding by government officials of how e-Commerce can work.  Many officials have a very limited view of e-Commerce possibilities with a narrow focus on delivering goods to final customers.  Instead, e-Commerce programs ought to focus on a broader definition of possibilities, including delivery of both goods and services, as well as business-to-business (B2B) applications and final consumer demands. 

A broader perspective on e-Commerce possibilities and obstacles should help governments in Asia focus attention on a wider range of issues that must be considered and addressed in creating supportive policies.  For example, smaller firms that do export or import goods need a set of policies for smaller size or smaller value shipments.  Delays at the border of any kind can be catastrophic for firms since it ties up inventory and prevents payment.  A small firm can easily go out of business waiting 45 days or longer for money to reach their bank account.

Government needs to recognize the possibilities for small firms to provide a wide range of services.  For many developing countries, especially, firms can plug into wider regional or global value chains through the provision of services much more easily than they can engage in trade in goods.  Again, barriers to entry for services providers can be substantial, even if firms do not recognize that their own specific challenges in this regard are related to policy decisions by government to, for instance, limit foreign firm access to certain markets.

The Asian Trade Centre is using the information provided by this range of companies in different parts of the e-Commerce world to create a set of policy proposals for governments in the region.  We have already presented the proposal highlighted at the back of the report to the 16 party trade negotiators meeting as part of the e-Commerce deliberations in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).  We are also working to put these ideas into practice as part of ASEAN’s Vision 2025. 

Finally, we are working within the APEC framework to encourage governments across the Asia-Pacific to consider e-Commerce in a broader, more holistic manner.  APEC has created an ad-hoc committee on the internet economy that should help guide policy across a wider range of issue areas than just a focus on telecommunications policy. 

Getting the right policies into place to unleash the creative and entrepreneurial spirits of smaller firms like those featured in our report should lead to greater opportunities for economic growth and development across the region.  Thinking carefully about e-Commerce provides an ideal space for government officials to consider and address next generation barriers to trade.   We are looking forward to hearing from more firms and governments trying to operate in this space.

***Talking Trade is a blog post written by Deborah Elms, Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre, Singapore***