Blocking Trade With a Label

Trade policy experts frequently discuss non-tariff barriers (NTBs) or non-tariff measures (NTMs) that hamper the movement of goods across borders.  But much of this discussion takes place at a high level of generality with few specific examples.

Businesses on the ground are not particularly interested in vague discussions about NTBs.  Instead, they are occupied with trying to understand and respond to specific issues that prevent their goods from getting into or out of markets.  One underappreciated problem for companies is product labeling. 

Governments can certainly use labeling laws and regulations as a means to protect their markets from foreign competition.  Often, however, government regulatory bodies and legislators view product labels as a necessary tool to protect their citizens from harm or to provide customers with important information.

Global and regional trade rules all allow governments to regulate in the interests of public health, animal health and plant life.  For companies, ensuring safe products with reliably high quality is also important.  Hence, both government and firms would agree that regulations for product labeling are necessary. 

But many governments appear to be asking for excessive information to be included on products.  For smaller companies in particular, onerous regulations on labels can make it impossible for otherwise competitive firms to trade. 

As an example, here are the rules for exporting food products to Laos:

Food distributed directly to consumers in Laos must carry Lao language wording in a font and size that is clearly visible. Foreign language wording is also permitted.

In principle, food product labels are required to indicate the following:

·      name of product

·      registration number for food products

·      name and location of producers or company that packed products for distribution

·      country that produced the product

·      quantity of product (expressed in metric system)

·      important contents of products in percentage in relation to gross weight, in decreasing order

·      production date or expiry date, depending on products

·      if available, advice on storage, preparation methods, use of preservatives and colorings

In practice, it may be that regulations requiring Lao language labels are not always enforced.  Uncertainty is one of the biggest challenges for businesses.  Uneven enforcement of the rules means that companies could be caught out at any moment if the regulations are not strictly followed.

Thailand has equally complex rules around labels, with particularly strict provisions for dairy, baby foods, canned foods, vinegar, beverages, edible oil and fats, and gourmet powder (defined as an article containing monosodium glutamate (MSG) and used for food seasoning).  Food products must be approved and registered with the Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA). When seeking registration, importers must supply two samples of each product, details of the exact composition by percentage of each ingredient, and six labels. Foodstuffs in sealed containers are subject to specific regulations.

Assuming a company survives this far, food products for shipment into Thailand must show labels in Thai with the following information for consumers:

·      Name and brand of the product (both generic and trade)

·      Registration number

·      Name and address of the manufacturer

·      Name and address of the importer

·      Date of manufacturing and expiry

·      Net weight and volume

·      Any additives used

·      Health and nutritional claims (if any)

Alcoholic beverages must advise the percentage of alcohol content. There must also be a health warning, printed in Thai, on the label or on a sticker, with specific wording.

Cosmetics have to be labeled in Thai with:

·      The name and type of the product

·      The name of manufacturer and address

·      Directions for use

·      Net contents

·      A statement of caution if irregular use may cause injury

These rules from Thailand are so complex, overall, that firms may have to use a local agent or importer to help register foreign products and help with labeling.  Again, for smaller firms, meeting these rules may prove impossible.

These examples may be on the extreme end, but juggling different requirements for labeling of products, boxes, packaging and so forth is a common issue across companies, countries and sectors.  If labeling rules get to be too onerous, firms will simply bypass markets entirely. 

Future posts will continue to highlight specific examples of labeling and other non-tariff barriers as well as explore how free trade agreements can conflict with labeling rules and create outcomes that governments do not always appear to appreciate.

TPP: Waiting for Godot?

The news that the next scheduled ministerial for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations have been postponed from March until April will cause many people to wonder again whether we are all waiting for Godot.  Will the TPP ever get across the finish line or will the goal posts keep getting shifted backwards?

The 5th anniversary of negotiations is just around the corner.  The first substantive talks in Australia began in March 2010 with tremendous enthusiasm.  Here was a rare trade agreement that would take high ambition and high quality as objectives from the opening moment. 

The intervening years have been a long, hard slog.  Adding new members along the way (like Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan) complicated talks.  Moving to a deal with 12 members increased the potential benefits but also brought new sets of sensitive issues to address. 

Getting the agreement done means that 12 countries have to convince themselves that the deal on the table is the best possible outcome at this point in time.  There is no way that every member will be able to receive all of their original objectives, so each must decide how far to compromise. 

The problem is that no individual member has an incentive to be the first to drop their objections or to accept less than ideal outcomes in their most important areas.  Negotiators have to believe that they are in the final moments of bargaining before they can solve the last, most challenging topics. 

This is why the shifting goalposts are problematic.  If the finish line keeps moving backwards, then officials can never be certain that the time has come to resolve the toughest issues. 

Why did this latest “deadline” change?  It’s not entirely clear, but two explanations are likely.  First, some members of Congress have been very blunt about how the TPP agreement cannot be concluded until Congressional authorization in the form of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is in place.  The push is on to get TPA concluded in Washington, but will likely take until March before this vote will take place.  Thus, any announcement of TPP “substantial closure” cannot take place at the time of the originally scheduled TPP ministerial round in March.

Second, the deal cannot be substantially concluded until members agree that they are ready to close.  Most of the focus has been on Japan and their difficulties in getting a suitable bargain on the remaining agricultural items (the five “sacreds” as noted in an earlier Talking Trade post). 

These are certainly challenging.  But a focus on Japan has obscured other member issues.  The United States, for example, will likely have to concede something on autos.  For example, American negotiators have apparently been holding out for phase-outs on tariff reductions in cars for 25-30 years.  This is clearly incompatible with the timelines used elsewhere in the deal (and certainly flies in the face of the “high ambition” objectives of the agreement).

The Canadians have not yet prepared their own market access concessions in dairy.  Any change in Canada’s supply management system is highly sensitive and politically challenging.  Yet getting the TPP done means that Canada cannot expect to receive 100% of what it wants at the end.  Crafting a bargain that will satisfy both Canada and its partners that want ambitious market openings in this sector takes time.   In the end, the best deal might be the one that leaves everyone the least unsatisfied or unhappy.

There are other challenges in timing as well.  Some of the most sensitive points that remain to be locked into the agreement are still not confirmed—like the extent and reach of state owned enterprise (SOE) rules, the listing of rules and regulations that will not change after the TPP comes into effect (non-conforming measures), specific timing for implementation of rules for different members in areas like intellectual property rights (where some members will have longer timeframes for implementation of certain provisions), and so forth.

Officials appear to have decided that getting it all done will take more than a few more days and will require another round of talks at the chief negotiator level (with a few working groups also feverishly trying to wrap up their outstanding issues).  Thus, the hoped-for “final” ministerial has been pushed to April.

Perhaps, this time, the April “deadline” will stick and we will finally be able to stop waiting for Godot to arrive. 

Currency: Manipulating an End to the TPP?

One persistently bad American idea, periodically raised in the context of trade negotiations, is to build into the text of any agreement some clauses that prevent countries from “manipulating” their currencies.  The inclusion of such a clause at this point in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations may be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back, leading to the collapse of the entire enterprise.

Any sort of currency manipulation clause is unlikely to solve the problem it is ostensibly trying to address.  Worse, in order to ensure that American interests are not undermined, the provisions would have to be carefully crafted such that they might never be triggered.  The final point of damage—even if there are virtually no circumstances under which such clauses might be used, America’s trade partners in the TPP might simply refuse to conclude negotiations at all.

Despite three excellent reasons for not moving ahead with such an idea, more than half the members of the last Congress already went on record supporting the inclusion of currency manipulation in all U.S. trade agreements.  Last week, a bill to address manipulation was introduced in both Houses.

So what is the problem so many backers of such legislation are trying to address?  In brief, governments can give a competitive advantage to their export industries if their currency is lower in value than their export partners.  The difference in currency values effectively makes imported goods cheaper in the foreign market, encouraging consumers and producers to buy more, relatively cheaper, foreign goods than relatively more expensive domestic items. 

How would a government go about making this happen?  If a government intervenes in currency markets, it can drive down demand for its own currency (or drive up demand for foreign currencies) by buying and selling currency. 

Another way to accomplish the same thing is to print more money domestically.  If there is more money in circulation now, the value of any given note is lower.  However, governments engaged in such behavior often argue that such policies are not aimed specifically at artificially depressing the value of the currency for the purpose of generating an unfair trade advantage. Therefore, such behavior is not considered currency manipulation, at least as members of Congress appear to want to define it. 

The purchase of assets by the government can also change the value of currencies, even if the objective is to stimulate the domestic economy.

Singapore loosened monetary policy two weeks ago in response to weaker oil prices and low domestic demand.  The government argued it was using one of the primary items in its tool kit to address low inflation, since it does not use interest rates as a tool.

Thus, governments may have lots of legitimate reasons for adjusting currencies without the specific intention of getting a leg up for exports.

It may be important to note that not every country is able to manipulate currencies.  If the country is small, especially with limited demand, the value of the currency is more likely set by market forces.  A country with limited resources cannot intervene very much to buy or sell currencies.  And, finally, the United States has a unique position in the global economy.  Since the U.S. dollar functions as a reserve currency, it allows the United States to have different options than anyone else in the markets (for the moment, at least, but that is another story).   Let me also note that because of this position, the United States does not have to intervene in currency markets like anyone else.

Efforts to stop countries from “unfairly manipulating” their currency will not work. 

There are many reasons why not, but start with the fact that most countries in a position to manipulate currencies also have complex economies.  These economies rely on both exports and imports.  For many firms, exports can only be produced with imported content.  By depressing the value of the currency to make exports cheaper, imports become more expensive.  As a result, firms may not actually be competitive in the export market since the price of imported content of the final goods might be more than offset by whatever the discount on the export side might be.

Equally key, for the most complex products, the value of the benefit from a depressed currency is likely to be small.  Consider an i-Pod, for instance.  Imagine that China were, in fact, manipulating their currency to a massive extent—say 50% off the presumed “normal” value of the yuan.   In this hypothetical context, it might appear that Chinese intervention is dramatically affecting the price of the device in the American market.  But, in fact, the total amount of Chinese content in an i-Pod could be as little as $4 of the $150 sales price.  Thus, the extent of the “unfair” advantage of Chinese currency might make a whole $2 difference to the final buyer.

Recall that this example gives figures for a truly exceptional rate of currency intervention at 50%.  The actual extent of manipulation is likely to be considerably smaller.  This means that the total price difference could be literally pennies.

While other products may not show such dramatic figures, the point is that—in most complex, higher value items—the content is likely to be provided by multiple countries.  As a result, even crazy high manipulation is unlikely to affect the final price very much. 

The Big 3 auto companies are driving the issue of currency manipulation in Washington.  But a car in the modern, globalized economy is very much like an i-Pod.  Even if you could determine that a China or a Japan was intervening to depress currency prices by a lot, the total difference in the price of a finished car is still likely to be much more modest than people realize.

To make this pressure by the Big 3 auto companies more surprising, many of the cars sold in the United States today are actually manufactured in whole or part in the United States (or NAFTA countries).  Thus, the value of potential manipulation on the total cost of a car is small. 

Practically speaking, a currency manipulation clause has additional challenges.  How can the specific amount of currency tweaking be measured?  Currencies change regularly in the open market, so a trade agreement has to take this into account somehow.  Even in the alleged cases of Japanese or Chinese manipulation, few could agree on the extent of intervention—was it 10 or 45% or something in between?

What is the appropriate response to such intervention?  Even if a trade agreement could specify the triggers for determining manipulation, then what?  Many of the proposed “solutions” appear to run afoul of other laws and regulations.

The United States, clearly, does not want to become ensnared in its own rules either.  Depending on how defined, basic American policy in the independent Federal Reserve could be challenged by foreign governments.  Problems like this make whatever provisions that might end up in trade agreements so tightly restrictive that they can never be applied or it might mean that the United States breaches the rules and argues for non-intervention in its own affairs. 

Finally, none of the specific partners currently negotiating the TPP are keen to see rules on currency manipulation included.  This agreement has been under discussion for nearly five years.  To add a controversial (to put it mildly) item so late in the game is to risk imploding the whole deal.

Some may argue that TPP partners have already accepted proposals and provisions that they do not like.  What is different about currency manipulation from other American ideas?  At some point, however, pushing too hard may make others snap.  This is likely to be that point.  Adding a very unpopular and unworkable idea like currency manipulation clauses into the TPP mix at this late day is a truly dreadful idea that should be discarded immediately.

RCEP: Low Quality, Low Ambition Beckons?

BANGKOK—The 16 Asian countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade negotiations have continued to meet in Bangkok.  As the last post suggested, getting an ambitious outcome from this trade agreement could bring significant benefits for member countries and the region as a whole.

A strong RCEP would provide new opportunities for large and small firms to connect to one another and to their customers and consumers across the region.  It could include better transparency of rules and regulations so that companies find operating businesses less challenging.  The deal could save time and money for firms by speeding up barriers to trade at the borders and address new sets of issues that previous agreements left out.

In short, the rhetoric surrounding a possible RCEP deal is very helpful.  However, seven rounds into the negotiations, the reality of what might emerge from these rooms is less optimistic. 

In part, I would argue, low ambition stems from a particular chicken-and-egg problem in RCEP.  That is, while businesses stand to benefit in important ways from an agreement that ties together the region from Japan and China to India and New Zealand, and includes all of ASEAN, business groups are not engaged in the talks.  Because business groups are not here and are not pushing for ambitious outcomes, government officials do not feel especially compelled to deliver much. 

Of course, a post like this might not galvanize firms to pay greater attention either.  However, in the absence of feedback from businesses and others about what is needed or what is lacking, officials are likely to continue to bump along the bottom of the ambition scale.

A few businesses have managed to present materials here.  A couple of firms or industry associations were able to speak directly to officials in the experts meetings on e-commerce and non-tariff barriers, for example.  [For the sake of transparency, I should note that the Asian Trade Centre also presented a proposal on e-commerce.]  But business is largely absent and uninterested.  Consumer groups and other NGOs are equally unengaged. 

I have always joked that trade officials have never deliberately embarked on a low quality, low ambition agreement.  But precisely this mindset seems to be seeping into negotiations in several ways.  Start with the most basic element of a free trade agreement (FTA):  market access for goods.  In general, an FTA tries to deliver better benefits for members than non-members receive.  The single easiest deliverable is to grant lower tariff (or duty) rates to member companies. 

Talks have been hamstrung around this issue in RCEP.  India, South Korea and China showed up at the last round with a proposal to open only 40% of their tariff lines for benefits.  Things got even worse this round, when India further suggested that concessions on the 40% of items covered would vary, depending on the member country.

This is even more depressing than it first appears.  India does not actually trade much in goods with the other RCEP members.  Thus, much of India’s trade takes place in a very narrow band of tariff lines or product categories.  A 40% offer could easily exclude from the outset all the items that might conceivably be traded with anyone and certainly would carve out all the items of particular interest for most trading partners. 

The latest offer made things even worse, as the specific content of India’s 40% offer could shift between RCEP member countries.  Recall that the whole point of an agreement like RCEP is to make it easier for companies to source, buy and sell from and across members.  If every country has different sets of sensitive items that are completely excluded from coverage, it becomes so complicated for companies that many will just skip using the agreement at all. 

To add further fuel to the low ambition fire, India has also suggested deeply unhelpful provisions in the rules of origin (ROOs) discussions.  Tariffs and ROOs work in tandem.  I could create fantastic tariff reductions but make it so difficult for products to qualify for these lower rates that no one will use them.  Conversely, I can recommend easier ROOs that help business take advantage of even relatively higher tariff levels.  One of the best things about previous ASEAN agreements was that their ROO regimes were generally quite good.

For RCEP, India is suggesting applying the rules only to “wholly obtained” goods.  These are items that are 100% sourced from inside one (and only one) country—mostly things that are grown, harvested, dug up or fished out of the country’s territory.  This completely negates a primary purpose of a deal like RCEP, which is to connect together supply or value chains across the region.  Firms almost never source goods only from one territory anymore.  Further harm comes from such rules, as they would condemn the poorer members in the agreement to stick to exporting only raw materials and (mostly) unprocessed agricultural products where the value is often lowest.

Outside of goods, things are not shaping up much better either.  In services, for example, many members are pushing to use a negotiating method (a positive list) that is frequently a route to low-quality outcomes.  Under this method, countries open only the sectors explicitly listed in the agreement. 

The track record of ASEAN and the Dialogue Partners (or ASEAN Foreign Partners, AFPs, as they are called here) is not great.  Most members barely agreed to open services in the existing ASEAN+1 deals.  Thus, although it might be possible to have an ambitious, positive list approach to services, the signs are not promising.  This sort of list is stubbornly resistant to change later as well, making it harder to ratchet up quality over time in services.

In several other areas like competition, intellectual property rights, or sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules over food and food safety, talks are progressing extremely slowly with wide gaps between member positions.   These splits are not always between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners either.  Often, the disagreement is greatest between ASEAN members or, especially, between some Partners. 

Lest I be accused of picking only on India, let me say that other members are also pursuing low ambition outcomes.  In e-commerce, for example, it was the Malaysian lead trade official (joined, however, by India) who apparently helped kill off a unanimous suggestion of the experts group to proceed with setting up a working group on the topic.  E-commerce was one promising avenue for helping small and medium sized firms take advantage of the agreement and plug into larger chains for greater growth and job prospects.

Officials continue to work around a schedule that calls for conclusion by the end of the year.  The next round, however, is not until June.  Given how relatively little has been decided, getting a deal done a few months from now will be a major challenge.  The prospects for more ambition are not bright either, without substantial pressure for improved outcomes.

This is not an easy negotiation for many countries.  It is expensive to send delegates to far-flung locations and keep them away from their offices for a week or more.  Many of the RCEP participants only have small trade offices in the first place and putting a dozen or more people in Bangkok is a huge strain on resources. 

Given the apparently clear low trajectory of the talks after 7 rounds of negotiations, it seems to me that it is time to take bold action.  If, in the end, officials can’t craft an agreement that businesses use, what is the point?  Countries should be thinking seriously about walking away from this deal until the time is “ripe.” If this is not possible, then members should at least admit by the end of the next round that if higher ambition is not forthcoming quickly, then the agreement cannot and should not be done on the current timeline.  This would allow time for countries to improve their knowledge and understanding of some key issues.  It would give an opportunity to dramatically improve the offers on the table before a deal is sealed.  The alternative could be a 16 party low quality, low ambition trade agreement in Asia.

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Before I close for today, I would like to note one extremely positive development from RCEP—participating countries have all sent large delegations of women.  A purely unscientific guess would put the gender balance at 50/50?  In any case, there are many, many smart, articulate women here.  Many are lead negotiators in various chapters.  Perhaps they will speak up more loudly in the media and on stage in the future, so we might avoid the extremely depressing problem highlighted here in the New York Times of a lack of female voices in public around issues of foreign and economic policy.  I’ve lost track of the number of times I am the only woman on the stage or in the room!

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP): An Asian Trade Agreement for a Value Chain World

BANGKOK—Negotiators from across 16 countries in Asia are meeting this week in Bangkok to try to put together a new trade agreement.  The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a megaregional trade agreement, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) discussed in last week’s blog.

What all three agreements have in common is a shared vision of creating trade arrangements that bring together ever-larger sets of countries.  RCEP includes 16 parties in Asia.  TPP spans 12 on both sides of the Pacific.  TTIP is trying to link the U.S. with the 28 members of the European Union.

These larger trade groupings are increasingly important given changing patterns of global trade.  In the past, governments worked mostly at the global level through the World Trade Organization (WTO) or bilaterally with like-minded partners.  Now, however, the WTO is clearly unable to move forward on any aspect of its agenda.  Bilateral trade deals, while welcome, do not accurately reflect the way the most dynamic companies operate on the ground.

The process through which goods and services are produced and consumed is shifting rapidly.  We are increasingly living in a world of global value chains (GVCs) or global supply chains.  We’ve had supply chains of one sort or another in trade for centuries, as firms have traded with one another for raw materials, components, or final, finished goods.  What is different now is that, with falling costs of communication and transportation, it is possible for companies to source exactly the right inputs from exactly the right geographic space to take advantage of different costs in materials, services, labor, and capital.  The world is literally the “oyster” for global companies.

Such a development often makes people uncomfortable, as it unleashes fears of being overrun by large multinational companies that are extremely competitive.  But this need not be the case.  A GVC world also makes it possible for the smallest firms in the most remote places on earth to fit into value or supply chains elsewhere in ways that were never possible in the past.  Firms can deliver services like translation, provide medical assistance, assist with customer service tasks, handle accounting, create new products, participate in the design of items large and small, and sell their own goods directly to consumers anywhere in the world with relative ease.  Even manufacturing is possible in places that could not participate in the past when transport costs were prohibitive. 

In this world, trade agreements have not kept pace with changes on the ground.  The WTO agenda is nearly 15 years old.  Bilateral agreements between two countries are not particularly helpful for value chains that span dozens of places. 

Hence the drive to create larger trade agreements.  In Asia, many governments have been very promiscuous, signing up to all sorts of trade deals.  Singapore, for example, has more than 20 in force with more under negotiation.  Such agreements can be helpful in spurring economic growth, especially for some companies or covered industries.

But the benefits of larger agreements cannot be ignored.  If a company had to fill out only one type of paperwork to, say, export pencils to up to 15 other markets, this would be extremely helpful (and, it should be noted, most helpful for the smallest firms without people or resources to try to fill out 15 different forms).  Creating a single platform and production base across the widest set of participants should make it easier for small and medium sized companies to participate.

This brings us back to the 7th round of RCEP negotiations taking place in Thailand.  The 10 member countries of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) already have agreements with their “Dialogue Partners” through what are called ASEAN+1 deals.  Under these trade agreements, ASEAN has hooked up with Japan, South Korea, China, India and Australia/New Zealand.  The intention now is to stitch these existing agreements together into one, comprehensive megaregional that covers all 16 countries.

Done well, the new RCEP should unleash significant economic growth in Asia.  Such an agreement ought to be particularly welcomed by smaller firms and poorer countries in the region, since they would have a platform to more easily hook into existing and new value chains. 

RCEP could be extremely helpful in creating a trade agreement better suited for a GVC environment.  Negotiations here in Bangkok include talks on goods, rules of origin, services, investment, competition, intellectual property rights, e-commerce, legal and institutional issues, and economic and technical cooperation.  The goal is to complete talks by the end of the year.  If successful, the potential for growth and development in this region is substantial.

The next post will focus on how well this vision is matching up with the reality taking shape in the negotiating rooms here in Bangkok.  Stay tuned!

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For updates on the ground in Bangkok, follow our Twitter posts at @RCEPNews or visit our website at www.asiantradecentre.org.