Mapping Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) in Asia-Pacific Economies: Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Sectors

This research has several key findings that describe the non-tariff measures (NTMs) implementation among APEC member economies on three focused areas: agriculture, fishery, and forestry. One of the findings is that the dissimilarity pattern on NTMs amongst APEC members appears to be higher for the forestry sector, while agriculture and fishery are relatively lower. The study also found that the different patterns of implementing NTMs regulation among APEC members is not correlated with the distance and the size of the economy. This result calculates that removing NTMs among APEC members will generate welfare significantly almost to all APEC members. In total, APEC will gain almost USD 7 billion from increased free trade flow for agriculture, fishery, and forestry products. Finally, streamlining the NTMs regulation in the three sectors will positively affect intra-trade performance in the APEC region.