THE WORLD TARIFF PROFILES 2021 HAS BEEN PUBLISHED

The WTO published on July 14 the 2021 edition of World Tariff Profiles, a joint publication with the International Trade Center the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which provides information on tariff and non-tariff customs measures imposed from over 170 countries and territories.

The annual publication reports, among other things, a series of summary tables, which allow to parameterize the average “bound” or maximum tariff that each country, subject of the analysis, can apply to its imports based on national and international forecasts the average rate charged to the goods in practice. Specific insights provide more detailed data for each economy examined, showing the rates broken down by product groups; information of sure interest, each profile also shows the tariffs applied, in import and export, by the main commercial partners, then summarized in a table. The attention of analysts, in 2021, was directed to the issue of the use of non-tariff measures (NTM). Using data from UNCTAD’s Trade Analysis Information System (TRAINS), three indicators are examined: the frequency index, the coverage rate and the prevalence score, showing the percentage share of products subject to NTM and the measures by groups of products: almost 60% of imported products must comply with at least one non-tariff measure, corresponding, in terms of commercial value, to almost 80% of imported goods.