Assessing the Doha Round: Market access, transactions costs and aid for trade facilitation

This paper compares the predicted trade impacts of a successful Doha Round with the trade effects of actions aimed at reducing domestic trade costs for traders in developing countries and the world as a whole. We show that a relatively small reduction in trade costs will generate trade impacts that are larger than what is likely to emerge even from a relatively ambitious Doha Round market access outcome. This illustrates the importance of complementing market access commitments with measures to reduce trade costs in developing countries which is the objective of the trade facilitation negotiations in the Doha Round - and additional aid for trade to assist countries in covering the costs of improving trade-related procedures and processes.