To better integrate their economies into Global Value Chains, governments need a fine-tuned understanding of their dynamics and policies, and we have made considerable progress on this front. For example, we have learned that success in international markets depends as much on the capacity to import high-quality inputs as on the capacity to export: intermediate inputs account for over 2/3 of the goods and 70% of the services we trade.
Globalisation is largely about participation in global value chains. But making the most of globalisation and successfully integrating these value-chains requires that enterprises enhance their competitiveness and raise their productivity, said Angel Gurría
We need to work more on the growing importance of services and accompanying policies to ensure inclusive growth. Efficient services regulations are a key for increasing productivity not just in the services sectors themselves, but also in the manufacturing sectors, said Angel Gurría.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, if successfully concluded, would be the most significant bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to date, covering approximately 50% of global output, almost 30% of world merchandise trade (including intra-EU trade, but excluding services trade) and 20% of global foreign direct investment.
New OECD trade data, first released in January 2013 and updated in late-May, traces the value added by each industry and each country as goods and services cross borders. The analysis offers a more complete picture of commercial relations between nations and a clearer interpretation of the changing face of global trade than more conventional indicators. Further information is available here.
Merchandise trade growth increased in the major economies during the first quarter of 2013. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2012, the value of merchandise imports and exports for the total of G7 and BRICS countries increased by 1.3% and 2.8%, respectively.
New trade data measured in value-added terms shows that services – such as logistics, design, and transportation - are far more important to global commerce than they appear in traditional calculations of exports and imports.
A wide range of stakeholders examined the progress made on measuring trade in value added terms and to extract and clarify the emerging policy implications that can be employed to stimulate strong, balanced and job-rich growth.
The costs of putting in place and maintaining trade facilitation measures are not particularly large and are far smaller than the benefits gained from implementing these measures, according to this study. Moreover, an increasing amount of technical and financial assistance to implement these measures has been made available to developing countries over the last decade.
The emergence of global value chains in manufacturing and services has revolutionised the way the world trades. It has also provided a valuable entry point for many developing economies into the global economy. Thanks to the combined efforts of the WTO and OECD, we now have a strong data-based understanding of these impacts, which will be vital to the design of effective trade policies.