Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies

To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade

animals and meat have the lowest tariff protection. In consequence with such argument, meat is

not included in Table 3.12 since the bilateral tariff rates for meat is already below the OIC

intraregional tariff rates. There is thus a conceivable potential to enhance the OIC intra-regional

trade of meat across potential trade partners. For live animals, only four potential importers

(Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Bangladesh) apply higher than average intra-OIC tariff rates for

the exports coming from Malaysia.

Other potential importing countries for live animals listed in Table 3.11 have lower than average

OIC tariffs against exports originating from exporting countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco,

Burkina Faso), thus creating a ground for potential preferential trade agreements, towards zero

tariff protection.

For oil seed exports, Turkey is faced with higher than average tariff rates from Iran and Tunisia.

For sugar exports, Indonesia faces higher than average tariff rates imposed by many importing

OIC countries as demonstrated in Table 3.12. The highest protection levels among all product

divisions are observed for sugar and oil seeds. The intra-OIC tariff rates against imports of oil

seeds are already high; yet bilateral tariff rates against exports originating from Turkey are

higher even more in two imposing countries, Iran and Tunisia. For sugar imports, the intra-OIC

tariff rates are highest among the five selected product divisions. Sugar imports originating from

Indonesia are protected with higher than average intra-OIC tariffs in nine of the importing

countries.

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey are not only the countries that are identified as potential

exporters of these potential products; in COMCEC (2013b), these countries are also emphasized

as countries that exhibit greatest potential as major agricultural FDI destinations within the OIC.

Overall, these three top exporting countries in five product divisions are faced with high tariff

protection frommany of the potential importers. The tariff rates are quite high when compared

to the average tariff rates applied in OIC intra-regional trade. Although more analysis is needed

to explore welfare effects of trade diversion, there is a room for lowering of tariffs against the

products coming from the top exporters. Such trade diversion has a prospect to enhance intra-

OIC trade in creating new trade possibilities across the OIC countries.

As underlined above, the analysis of NTMs is subject to data availability limitations. Specifically,

the NTM prevalence over products and the fraction of trade in value terms that is affected by the

NTMs are not available for all countries, all products and all NTM types. The WITS database on

NTMs does not cover the NTM related data of Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia,

Sudan, Syria and Yemen from the Arab group, of Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Iran,

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from the Asian group, and Chad,

Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda from the

African group. The available data for the most recent year and for other OIC countries and some

other country groups such as EU and ASEAN are presented in Tables F.13, F.14, and F.15 in

Annex F.

More specifically, these tables cover the technical measures, i.e., SPS measures under

the classification “A”, TBT measures under the classification “B” and pre-shipment inspection

and other formalities under the classification “C”, as the data on non-technical measures is

missing for a larger number of countries. Besides, only a single statistic, the coverage ratio (CR),

is presented in these tables, and the CR for a given country, a given product group, and a given

NTM type indicates the percentage of total import value that is subjected to the NTM regulation.

For instance, a CR of 92.38% for “Animals” associated with SPS measures in Kuwait indicates

The NTM Map data that provides NTM data for a large set of countries and five different NTMs (including SPS and TBT

measures) covers only the 2010-2012 period.