UNCTAD: Expert Meeting on Promoting Value Addition and Enhancement of Domestic Productive Capacity through Local Economic Empowerment

A key challenge in the integration of developing countries into the global trading system has been the range, variety (under the same classification code) and technological content of the goods and services they produce for export.

Promoting value addition and enhancing domestic productive capacity is therefore a pressing and continuing challenge for developing countries as they seek to positively participate in global trade. In addition to domestic productive capacity, market access conditions under which goods and services are traded present formidable challenges.

The meeting was expected to:

• Discuss the policies and strategies needed to ensure diversification that adds value to exports and strengthens and empowers local communities;
• Promote among participants a better understanding of the links between trade and market access beyond tariffs, namely the impact of non-tariff measures and voluntary sustainability standards in trade and productive capacity;
• Discuss how to ensure coherence between trade and other policies in the above-mentioned areas, even in cases where they touch upon sanitary and safety-related policies or environmental protection;
• Cast light on the importance of transparency, regional cooperation and governance with regard to non-tariff measures and voluntary sustainability standards.

Jaime de Melo, Scientific Advisor at FERDI and Professor Emeritus of the University of Geneva was a panelist at the session on market access conditions and trade costs faced by new products.

He spoke on regulatory product standards (non-tariff measures (NTMs).